On the penultimate day of our honeymoon in Lisbon we visited the Lisbon oceanarium in Parque das Nações, where the EXPO was held in 1998. This is definitely a modern part of otherwise charmingly historic & romantic Lisbon. I enjoyed walking around the grounds of the former World Exhibition site which is nowadays a residential and touristic quarter. There are newly built hotels and a shopping mall, homes, offices etc. There’s also a very luxurious and Dubai-looking hotel in Vasco da Gama tower. We walked along the promenade and took photos of one of the longest bridges in the world ( Vasco da Gama bridge). We didn’t take a ride in the cable car so that’s definitely something we could do if we ever go back to Lisbon (I’d like that very much.)
So, the Lisbon oceanarium is the largest indoor aquarium in Europe. Right next to the entrance is a waterfall!:) We could have bought our tickets online but I didn’t really think of that before so we had to wait in line for a while. The building itself is interesting but the main feature of this oceanarium is a huge tank ( 1,000 m2 , 5,000 m3 ) with large (49 m2) windows on its sides that stretch across several storeys. The tank is 7 m deep and there are about 100 species from around the world in it including scary sharks, rays, barracudas, groupers, and moray eels and lots of others. There are four tanks around this large central tank that showcase four different habitats: the North Atlantic rocky coast, the Antarctic coastal line, the Temperate Pacific kelp forests, and the Tropical Indian coral reefs. Apart from these big tanks there a lot of smaller ones with frogs, seahorse, corals, jellyfish etc. We also saw lovely penguins and puffins and we saw sea otters being fed. That was such a cute sight 🙂 The visit was very educational and interesting. I’d recommend it to anyone, especially to families.
Date of visit: Sep 2014
For ticket prices and other information check the site: http://www.oceanario.pt/en/
Have you had a similar experience?
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Looks like a great aquarium and I’ve heard good things about it from others as well. Would be on my Lisbon to-do list:)
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great!
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We really enjoyed Lisbon and plan to return. I’d forgotten about the oceanarium. Must go, if for no other reason than they have the cutest penguins. 🙂
I’ll remember to buy our tickets ahead of time. Thanks for that.
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you’re welcome:)
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those otters are absolutely the cutes1
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;)yes, they are.
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I love Lisbon but I only spend about a week there and missed this. The penguin and the otters are sweet!
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thanks:)
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Wonderful set of beautiful photos. It has been long time when I visited Lisbon. Thank You for this lovely post.
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thank you for reading it!:)
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You’ve gotten lovely shots, Tanja! Is that a lion fish?
Yours is the third post I’ve read this week about Lisbon – the first of the Oceanarium. Looks like a pretty cool place to visit. Thanks!
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🙂 it is cool! I don’t know fish species that well , sorry:)
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It is so much fun to explore a new city, isn’t it? I think I am overdue for one. And I always love aquariums. Well, I’ll take that back a little, it hurts to see all the animals in captivity, but – I still enjoy my visits.
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I just went in November. I loved the otters! It was the perfect break from running around Lisbon during my first week there.
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🙂
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We recently visit the aquarium here in Singapore. I enjoy aquariums and your photos of the penguin and otters in particular are very cute. Lisbon’s aquarium looks like a good one.
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I do like aquariums, they’re so relaxing and beautiful.
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I didn’t expect that Lisbon would have such an interesting oceanarium (we call it aquarium in the USA). I would very much like to visit Portugal and especially Lisbon.
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Lisbon’s great and I hope you visit it!:)
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That cable car ride looks so awesome! Really nice photos of the aquarium, I have only been to an aquarium one time. Maybe one day I will get to go to this one, thanks for sharing!
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you’re welcome!
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This looks great. I like the cute picture of the penguin, it looks like it is spreading its wings in an attempt to fly.
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🙂
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This looks great! I love that cute, little penguin – so sweet! 😀
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🙂
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We’ve just booked flights for a visit to Lisbon at Easter – good to read about the Oceanarium – sounds like we should go!!
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Yes, check it out!:)
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