Museu dos Condes Castro Guimarães

Museu dos Condes Castro Guimarães
It is the Municipal Museum of Cascais, standing by the sea and lodged in a building with an extremely original architecture.

The palace was donated to the local authorities in 1924, and since then has been devoted to art displays.

Its collections include items of great artistic and documental value, such as works of art portraying Cascais by Portuguese and foreign artists, Indo-Portuguese porcelain and an excellent archaeology section.

The prize exhibit in the library (with about 2500 rare works) is a valuable illustrated book by Duarte Galvão, Chronicle of the king Dom Afonso Henriques, dating from 1505, with a coloured print depicting 16th-century Lisbon.

The garden shelters a curious mini-zoo of small animals, sponsored by Cascais Town Council.