Lisbon summers run hot and dry, and the hills turn a midday walk into hard work. The plan: get outside early, then spend the hottest hours somewhere cooler, from big indoor museums to seawater and learner pools, shady gardens and a hillside forest. Here's what we checked, from the Oceanarium's giant tank to the palace park up in the cooler Sintra hills.
Built around one central tank holding five million liters of saltwater, where sharks and rays glide past, with four marine habitats around it that read as part of the same aquarium.
The route runs on two levels, so kids see each habitat from the surface and then from underwater. Around 8,000 marine creatures live here, from coral reef fish to sea otters.
Pavilion of Knowledge is the Ciência Viva science center on the old Expo 98 site, and every exhibit is made to be touched. TCHARAN! is a science circus with a mirror maze, a musical floor and the Unfinished House, where kids in hard hats work cranes and pulleys. In Fishanário, a child's drawing of a sea creature is scanned and swims into a projected ocean.
The Portuguese Navy's planetarium sits beside the Navy Museum and Jerónimos Monastery in Belém. Its 25-meter dome turns into a night sky when the Carl Zeiss projector fills it with stars, planets and nebulae, and some shows are led live by a presenter.
Younger kids get animated stories like Captain Schnuppes. Older kids get shows on the Sun, galaxies and how sailors once navigated by the stars.
One of the world's oldest aquariums, opened in 1898 and run by the Portuguese Navy. Downstairs, five rooms hold around 90 tanks with more than 300 live species, from Portuguese coastal fish to tropical reef fish, seahorses and freshwater species. The Window to the Ocean room has a giant interactive screen for young kids. Upstairs, King Carlos I's collection of preserved sea creatures fills the Noble Hall.
GO fit Olivais is a members' sports club spread over almost 25,000 square meters. Indoors there is a swimming pool and a learner pool; outdoors, a third pool with an open-air sun area. Kids take swimming lessons, join parent-and-child dance and fitness classes, or stay in the free Diver fit playroom while a parent trains. There are also three padel courts and a running track.
Piscina Municipal do Oriente is a city pool run by the Parque das Nações parish council, with a six-lane main pool and a three-lane learning pool with a ramp into the water.
Kids can join weekly swim lessons, water-adaptation classes or baby classes, and families can swim together in open sessions when enough lanes are free.
Two pools filled from the sea sit side by side at Oeiras Marina, next to Praia da Torre and looking out over the mouth of the Tagus.
Small kids get a 330 m² pool only 40cm deep; older swimmers get a big main pool and a diving tower with boards up to 7.5 meters. Lawns, loungers, umbrellas, a restaurant-bar, changing rooms and lockers surround the water, with lifeguards on duty.
A modernist garden designed in the 1960s by landscape architects Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles and António Viana Barreto around the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation buildings. Wooded paths open onto small lawns and a central lake where mallards swim and kingfishers and night herons turn up.
Kids can follow the trails, watch the ducks from the pebble shore on the south bank, and explore the open-air amphitheater.
Estufa Fria is a 1.5-hectare garden of three greenhouses inside Parque Eduardo VII. The biggest, the Cold Greenhouse, has no heating: wooden slats overhead filter the sun onto azaleas, camellias, small lakes and waterfalls.
The Hot Greenhouse grows coffee and mango trees, and the Sweet Greenhouse is full of cacti and aloe. Kids can follow the paths past caves, water and sculptures, and compare the three climates.
Monsanto is the city's largest green space: over 900 hectares of pine, oak and eucalyptus on the hills west of the center, crossed by cycle paths and forest trails. Kids can spot squirrels and rabbits, picnic under the trees, and take in Tagus views from the lookouts.
Parque Recreativo do Alto da Serafina has separate play zones for under-5s and 6 to 12s, a kids' driving track and a maze.
King Ferdinand II built this castle-like palace on a summit of the Sintra hills: red and yellow walls, towers, terraces and a stone Triton over one archway. Kids walk the terraces and a circuit of rooms inside.
The surrounding Park of Pena is Portugal's largest arboretum, with woodland paths, the Valley of Lakes, a fern valley, the Chalet of the Countess of Edla and the High Cross lookout.
Lisbon summers run hot and dry, and the hills turn a midday walk into hard work. The plan: get outside early, then spend the hottest hours somewhere cooler, from big indoor museums to seawater and learner pools, shady gardens and a hillside forest. Here's what we checked, from the Oceanarium's giant tank to the palace park up in the cooler Sintra hills.
Built around one central tank holding five million liters of saltwater, where sharks and rays glide past, with four marine habitats around it that read as part of the same aquarium.
The route runs on two levels, so kids see each habitat from the surface and then from underwater. Around 8,000 marine creatures live here, from coral reef fish to sea otters.
Pavilion of Knowledge is the Ciência Viva science center on the old Expo 98 site, and every exhibit is made to be touched. TCHARAN! is a science circus with a mirror maze, a musical floor and the Unfinished House, where kids in hard hats work cranes and pulleys. In Fishanário, a child's drawing of a sea creature is scanned and swims into a projected ocean.
The Portuguese Navy's planetarium sits beside the Navy Museum and Jerónimos Monastery in Belém. Its 25-meter dome turns into a night sky when the Carl Zeiss projector fills it with stars, planets and nebulae, and some shows are led live by a presenter.
Younger kids get animated stories like Captain Schnuppes. Older kids get shows on the Sun, galaxies and how sailors once navigated by the stars.
One of the world's oldest aquariums, opened in 1898 and run by the Portuguese Navy. Downstairs, five rooms hold around 90 tanks with more than 300 live species, from Portuguese coastal fish to tropical reef fish, seahorses and freshwater species. The Window to the Ocean room has a giant interactive screen for young kids. Upstairs, King Carlos I's collection of preserved sea creatures fills the Noble Hall.
GO fit Olivais is a members' sports club spread over almost 25,000 square meters. Indoors there is a swimming pool and a learner pool; outdoors, a third pool with an open-air sun area. Kids take swimming lessons, join parent-and-child dance and fitness classes, or stay in the free Diver fit playroom while a parent trains. There are also three padel courts and a running track.
Piscina Municipal do Oriente is a city pool run by the Parque das Nações parish council, with a six-lane main pool and a three-lane learning pool with a ramp into the water.
Kids can join weekly swim lessons, water-adaptation classes or baby classes, and families can swim together in open sessions when enough lanes are free.
Two pools filled from the sea sit side by side at Oeiras Marina, next to Praia da Torre and looking out over the mouth of the Tagus.
Small kids get a 330 m² pool only 40cm deep; older swimmers get a big main pool and a diving tower with boards up to 7.5 meters. Lawns, loungers, umbrellas, a restaurant-bar, changing rooms and lockers surround the water, with lifeguards on duty.
A modernist garden designed in the 1960s by landscape architects Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles and António Viana Barreto around the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation buildings. Wooded paths open onto small lawns and a central lake where mallards swim and kingfishers and night herons turn up.
Kids can follow the trails, watch the ducks from the pebble shore on the south bank, and explore the open-air amphitheater.
Estufa Fria is a 1.5-hectare garden of three greenhouses inside Parque Eduardo VII. The biggest, the Cold Greenhouse, has no heating: wooden slats overhead filter the sun onto azaleas, camellias, small lakes and waterfalls.
The Hot Greenhouse grows coffee and mango trees, and the Sweet Greenhouse is full of cacti and aloe. Kids can follow the paths past caves, water and sculptures, and compare the three climates.
Monsanto is the city's largest green space: over 900 hectares of pine, oak and eucalyptus on the hills west of the center, crossed by cycle paths and forest trails. Kids can spot squirrels and rabbits, picnic under the trees, and take in Tagus views from the lookouts.
Parque Recreativo do Alto da Serafina has separate play zones for under-5s and 6 to 12s, a kids' driving track and a maze.
King Ferdinand II built this castle-like palace on a summit of the Sintra hills: red and yellow walls, towers, terraces and a stone Triton over one archway. Kids walk the terraces and a circuit of rooms inside.
The surrounding Park of Pena is Portugal's largest arboretum, with woodland paths, the Valley of Lakes, a fern valley, the Chalet of the Countess of Edla and the High Cross lookout.
