Lisbon (Portugal) #4: Oceanario de Lisboa – the Aquarium that everyone will love
Today I bring you to L’Oceanário, the 2nd largest aquarium in Europe.
Part 1: Travel Diary Part
2: Practical Tips
Part 1: Travel Diary
How to get there?
This aquarium is located right next to a subway/train station called Oriente. In fact, people may not know it (especially since Google Maps does not highlight this route), but you can go from Lisbon airport to Santa Apolonia station in 20 minutes, taking a subway (red line) to Oriente, then a suburban train to Santa Apolonia => so this trip (subway + train) will only take 20 minutes, instead of 45 minutes by subway (red line + blue line).
If you aren’t too busy, and the aquarium is your thing, this can be the first visit you can make to Lisbon, between the airport and the city center.
For the Santa Apolonia – Oriente train journey, check the timetable at www.cp.pt
Vasco da Gama Shopping Center
So between the train/metro station and the aquarium (10 minutes), we choose to have lunch in the middle, i.e. at the Vasco da Gama shopping center, one of the biggest shopping centers in Lisbon. We are on weekdays and at lunchtime the food court is crowded.
We choose to have lunch on the top floor, where you can choose and pay for sushi by weight (2,90 € per 100 grams). We have 24€ for two, it’s fresh and very good. I validate!
It must be said that the supermarkets in downtown Lisbon aren’t very big and lack choice. I’ve been looking for a few days now for a supermarket with a little more stock. Fortunately, here we have a hypermarket called Continente . With the suburban train, I can get there in only 7 minutes from the station of Santa Apolonia, in front of my Airbnb. I am relieved to have discovered it 🙂
Aquarium: Oceanario de Lisboa
After lunch, we continue on foot and see the Vasco Gama Bridge. It is really very long, with 6 lanes, and it is a technical feat. It has contributed greatly to improve the connection between the north and the south of the city.
You can also see the cable car that runs along the quay (30 minutes). Honestly, it doesn’t make you want to go anywhere…. but maybe I’m wrong.
We finally arrive in front of the aquarium and the ugly concrete building disappoints us a little. Add to that the price of the ticket : 19€/person !
We start with the temporary exhibition: submersible forests, a huge and very colorful aquarium that required 3 months of construction. The tree trunks would come from Indonesia. Visually, it is very beautiful.
We continue the visit in another building, consisting of a huge aquarium and 4 smaller aquariums. The central aquarium is divided into several parts (skillfully separated by huge rocks), with water at different temperatures, allowing us to observe penguins, and in the distance sharks … You can observe the aquarium on 2 floors and from small quiet corners..
I am a little disappointed with the size of the main aquarium because I have the impression that the one in La Rochelle (which I visited and liked a lot) is bigger. Moreover, we don’t have an “underwater” corridor/tunnel like in La Rochelle. It’s amazing for the 2nd largest aquarium in Europe.
However, this aquarium has many things that others don’t have :
A gigantic stripe (you can see it at the beginning of the video below). It must be at least 2m wide. Nothing to do with the stingrays we swam with in French Polynesia. We also saw a huge bull shark showing its teeth. Seriously, if I’m diving and I see one like that, I faint straight away.
Sunfish: the mole or sunfish – another fish that I don’t want to come across when snorkelling or diving. This one is still small, but it can reach 1.8m in width and weigh a ton! It is a fish that spends a lot of time near the water surface, so that the sun warms it up, and so that the birds come to get rid of the parasites on its skin. Clever! We have already seen it in South Africa, in “polka dot” version, and fortunately from a boat and not while swimming.
Sea otters – who spend their lives grooming. It’s so cute! This is the animal with an incredible hair density: 150,000 hairs per square centimeter because they have no fat to insulate themselves from the cold. They spend their whole day grooming to deposit a kind of fat on their hair, making it waterproof and bringing in a little air – to float on. On the video, we see an otter sleeping lying down… This level of cuteness is really unbearable ! <3<3
Throughout the visit, we are made aware of the protection of the ocean, biodiversity etc. They also explain to us how they will use our money (the 19€ entrance fee/person) to finance research, ocean protection, awareness projects etc.
The store (with super design objects) also contributes to this financing. I highly recommend buying the organic cotton t-shirts here, it’s one of my best purchases in Portugal, the fabric is of high quality (does not stink, does not stain, evacuates sweat well) and certified organic.
We also saw “Nemo and Dory”, in the same aquarium. It saddens me a little that they are present in all the aquariums of the world since the release of the film. It’s super ironic anyway. It’s not because Nemo is put in an aquarium that Martin has to go and find his son, with the help of Dory? Because of this film, we are repeating the same drama all over the world, so that people can see them and say “ahhh these are the fish of Nemo’s World”.
Conclusion
It’s not an essential visit, but it’s still fun and enjoyable. The “research” side, “protection of the ocean” side pleases me a lot and makes me forget the high rates. As I said at the beginning of the article, it can be a fun outing on the way from/to the airport. As long as it’s lightly loaded because you have to walk a little bit between the subway and the aquarium.
If needed, there are lockers at the aquarium and services at the airport to send your luggage directly to the hotel.
Part 2: Practical Tips
Access: metro or Oriente train station. Then 10 minutes on foot
There is a restaurant in the aquarium. Otherwise, there are restaurants nearby + the food court of the shopping center.
Ticket: 19€/adult in 2020
