With the exception of travel days and a free day in Porto, our trip until this point had been pretty well scheduled in advance. But we left our Lisbon days wide open to just go with the flow. Not surprisingly, when we gave the kids their choice of activities on the first day, they unanimously – and enthusiastically – selected the aquarium.
When Lisbon won the bid to host the 1998 World’s Fair, they took a run-down neighborhood and created a massive exhibition grounds featuring a variety of pavilions. The theme of Expo 98 was “The Oceans, A Heritage for the Future”, which commemorated the 500th anniversary of Vasco da Gama’s voyage to India. The aquarium was a natural extension and celebration of that theme. The expo’s organizers displayed great foresight, pre-selling all of the expo’s buildings to developers who took them over after the event and transformed the site into Parque das Nações, which remains a vibrant commercial and residential district to this day. The aquarium is a vital component of the park and attracts over a million visitors each year.
We bought our timed entry tickets online and took an uber to the aquarium. We got out on the beautiful, tree-lined Alameda dos Oceanos and headed towards the aquarium. While the building is striking, the enormous sea monster emerging from the water in front of it steals the show (at least for the kids). Created using 12 tons of disposable plastic bottles, the 50 meter long green sea monster is a striking reminder of the environmental cost of disposable plastics.
Peeking out of the water next to the sea monster is Vasco, the aquarium’s mascot and “defender of the oceans”. Named after explorer Vasco da Gama, the adorable super hero can be spotted throughout the aquarium grounds.
The entrance to the aquarium is in a separate building from the permanent exhibits. To get to the exhibits in the Oceans Building, you have to take an elevated walkway, which affords great views of the river and the beautifully tiled courtyard below.
Oceanário de Lisboa features over 8,000 marine creatures in 7 million liters of salt water tanks and is one of the largest aquariums in the world. The aquarium’s literal and figurative centerpiece is its 5 million liter aquarium in the middle of the building. Visible from every story of the building, it almost makes you feel as if you are ascending the different levels of the ocean, from the bottom dwellers to the surface fish. And surrounding the main tank are four different habitats – North Atlantic, Antarctic, Temperate Pacific, and Tropical Ocean. Through an ingenious design, they have separated all of the tanks with clear acrylic walls, giving the illusion that they are all swimming together.
One of the aquarium’s most impressive residents is an Ocean Sunfish, the largest bony fish in the world. These fish can grow to be almost 10 feet long and over 2 tons in weight. They get their name from their habit of “sunbathing” on the surface of the water, laying on their sides to allow birds to eat the parasites off their scale-less skin. These fish are notoriously fragile so few aquariums have them. The sunfish has been one of the most popular attractions at the aquarium since it arrived over 10 years ago.
Some of our favorite aquarium residents spend their time both above and below the water. The penguins and the otters are family favorites and we loved watching them play around in the water.
There were also smaller tanks in the aquarium that had some cool and unique sea creatures. There were some colorful sea anemones waving in the current in one tank, and a beautiful coral reef with colorful fish like the Royal Dottyback and Powder-blue Surgeonfish in another. The aquarium had both common and leafy sea dragons, two of the most unique creatures in the ocean. And my youngest son especially loved the variety of eels, from Splendid Garden Eels to Leopard Moray Eels.
We spent about an hour and fifteen minutes exploring the main section of the aquarium and loved it. I will say that this was probably the most crowded place that we visited on our entire trip to Portugal. Despite the fact that we were all wearing masks, the shoulder to shoulder people made me uncomfortable at times.
Before leaving we visited the special exhibit, Forests Underwater. Part aquarium exhibit, part art exhibit, Forests Underwater was designed by world famous “aquascaper” Takashi Amano. The 42,000 gallon freshwater tank forms an L shape in the room and is an artistic recreation of a submerged tropical forest. It was interesting how different the mood in this room was compared to the rest of the aquarium. The visitors treated it more like an art museum than an aquarium, and a hushed reverence filled the room. Despite how relatively small the room was, we spent about 15 minutes in here, enjoying the soothing, contemplative environment.
The aquarium was the kids’ choice but it was a hit with the whole family. The main tank and its 4 habitats were brilliantly designed to appear as a single underwater environment where all of the oceans’ creatures swim about together. With a tremendous variety of marine species in a beautifully designed space, Oceanário de Lisboa is a great way to spend half a day for kids and adults alike.
