Portuguese state schools break for Easter from March 22 to April 2, 2027. Easter here is a family-meal holiday more than a street spectacle: godparents give kids folar, a sweet bread often baked around whole eggs. Spring also suits the big days out: the zoo, a safari park, a dolphin boat. Here's what we checked, from kids' races in Belém to red carnations on Freedom Day.
The day before the EDP Lisbon Half Marathon belongs to families. In the morning, the Mimosa Family Walk is a 4 km route that parents, grandparents and kids cover at their own pace, with entertainment and a medal at the end. In the afternoon, the EDP New Generation races put young runners on a short course in age groups, so a first race feels like the real thing.
MONSTRA is Lisbon's animation festival, running since 2000, with hundreds of animated films from around the world plus exhibitions and workshops. Its kids' strand, Monstrinha, screens animated films for children, with sessions for schools and for families.
It suits kids who already sit happily through a cinema session. Much of the main program is aimed at grown-ups, so younger viewers do best in the Monstrinha sessions.
Portugal's first chocolate festival, running since 2002, fills the walled medieval town of Óbidos with chocolate. Kids walk past giant chocolate sculptures, watch sculptors and pastry chefs work live, and get their hands messy in chocolate workshops. There is a chocolate art museum and a market of chocolatiers' stalls.
Each edition has a theme. It suits kids who like to make things and taste as they go.
Lisbon Zoo is laid out by world region: Sumatran tigers in the rainforest, lions, giraffes and elephants on the African savanna, gorillas, chimpanzees, okapis and lemurs. Dolphin Bay hosts the dolphin presentation, and pelican feedings run between the Africa and Asia areas.
A cable car passes over the enclosures, a small train loops the grounds, and the Children's Farm introduces domestic animals.
Badoca is a large animal park in the Alentejo countryside, built around a 45-minute tractor-trailer safari across open savanna where giraffes, zebras, ostriches, buffalo and several kinds of antelope roam.
Between safari runs, kids watch eagles and hawks fly in a birds of prey show, see lemurs and a reptile talk, visit Primate Island, and walk forest paths past a small farm, meerkats and kangaroos.
Two-hour guided boat trips from Setúbal head out into Setúbal Bay, where the Sado estuary meets the sea, to find a resident community of about 30 wild bottlenose dolphins that live there year-round. Each dolphin is known by name from the shape of its dorsal fin.
On the way, the boat passes the Arrábida coast, the Tróia peninsula, the Outão fortress and small white-sand islands.
Tapada Nacional de Mafra is a walled forest that began as the royal hunting ground of Mafra's palace. Fallow deer, red deer and wild boar live free inside, and a guided electric-car tour climbs from the main valley to one of the highest points. Kids can also walk or bike marked trails, watch a birds-of-prey flight demo and learn about the forest's bees. It sits about 40 minutes' drive from Lisbon.
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.
Eduardo VII Park covers 26 hectares on a slope above Marquês de Pombal, with a long central lawn framed by clipped hedges and a straight view down Avenida da Liberdade to the Tagus. Tree-lined paths run along both sides, past lakes, a kiosk and a children's playground.
At the top is a viewpoint where a giant Portuguese flag usually flies. The Estufa Fria greenhouse fills the northwest corner.
Every year Lisbon marks the 1974 Carnation Revolution, which ended the dictatorship, with a people's march down Avenida da Liberdade. Families walk alongside unions, associations and neighborhood groups, and red carnations are everywhere: pinned to jackets, painted on signs, held up on cardboard.
The mood is loud, crowded and good-humored, a vivid way for kids to see what a free country celebrates. Kids who hate crowds will struggle.
Portuguese state schools break for Easter from March 22 to April 2, 2027. Easter here is a family-meal holiday more than a street spectacle: godparents give kids folar, a sweet bread often baked around whole eggs. Spring also suits the big days out: the zoo, a safari park, a dolphin boat. Here's what we checked, from kids' races in Belém to red carnations on Freedom Day.
The day before the EDP Lisbon Half Marathon belongs to families. In the morning, the Mimosa Family Walk is a 4 km route that parents, grandparents and kids cover at their own pace, with entertainment and a medal at the end. In the afternoon, the EDP New Generation races put young runners on a short course in age groups, so a first race feels like the real thing.
MONSTRA is Lisbon's animation festival, running since 2000, with hundreds of animated films from around the world plus exhibitions and workshops. Its kids' strand, Monstrinha, screens animated films for children, with sessions for schools and for families.
It suits kids who already sit happily through a cinema session. Much of the main program is aimed at grown-ups, so younger viewers do best in the Monstrinha sessions.
Portugal's first chocolate festival, running since 2002, fills the walled medieval town of Óbidos with chocolate. Kids walk past giant chocolate sculptures, watch sculptors and pastry chefs work live, and get their hands messy in chocolate workshops. There is a chocolate art museum and a market of chocolatiers' stalls.
Each edition has a theme. It suits kids who like to make things and taste as they go.
Lisbon Zoo is laid out by world region: Sumatran tigers in the rainforest, lions, giraffes and elephants on the African savanna, gorillas, chimpanzees, okapis and lemurs. Dolphin Bay hosts the dolphin presentation, and pelican feedings run between the Africa and Asia areas.
A cable car passes over the enclosures, a small train loops the grounds, and the Children's Farm introduces domestic animals.
Badoca is a large animal park in the Alentejo countryside, built around a 45-minute tractor-trailer safari across open savanna where giraffes, zebras, ostriches, buffalo and several kinds of antelope roam.
Between safari runs, kids watch eagles and hawks fly in a birds of prey show, see lemurs and a reptile talk, visit Primate Island, and walk forest paths past a small farm, meerkats and kangaroos.
Two-hour guided boat trips from Setúbal head out into Setúbal Bay, where the Sado estuary meets the sea, to find a resident community of about 30 wild bottlenose dolphins that live there year-round. Each dolphin is known by name from the shape of its dorsal fin.
On the way, the boat passes the Arrábida coast, the Tróia peninsula, the Outão fortress and small white-sand islands.
Tapada Nacional de Mafra is a walled forest that began as the royal hunting ground of Mafra's palace. Fallow deer, red deer and wild boar live free inside, and a guided electric-car tour climbs from the main valley to one of the highest points. Kids can also walk or bike marked trails, watch a birds-of-prey flight demo and learn about the forest's bees. It sits about 40 minutes' drive from Lisbon.
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.
Eduardo VII Park covers 26 hectares on a slope above Marquês de Pombal, with a long central lawn framed by clipped hedges and a straight view down Avenida da Liberdade to the Tagus. Tree-lined paths run along both sides, past lakes, a kiosk and a children's playground.
At the top is a viewpoint where a giant Portuguese flag usually flies. The Estufa Fria greenhouse fills the northwest corner.
Every year Lisbon marks the 1974 Carnation Revolution, which ended the dictatorship, with a people's march down Avenida da Liberdade. Families walk alongside unions, associations and neighborhood groups, and red carnations are everywhere: pinned to jackets, painted on signs, held up on cardboard.
The mood is loud, crowded and good-humored, a vivid way for kids to see what a free country celebrates. Kids who hate crowds will struggle.
