So after being in Portugal for a week now and getting some business taken care of, and I don’t mean the mob boss kind of business, I start my vacation. Off to Lisbon I went and my first stop is the Parque das Nações. This spot housed the Expo back in 1998. If you are going to visit this place at all I highly recommend that you get the Cartão do Parque (Park Pass) for €19,00 which is a pass to a few of the venues and gives you some discounts too.
But I’m getting a little ahead of myself because I want to talk about Lisbon’s metro system. Nearly every major station has its own unique design and artwork painted on the station walls. In the case of my trip over to the Parque das Nações the metro stop in Oriente. This station has a comic style collage painted across one side of the station and caught my eye. In the comic strip you find some childhood, or at least my childhood, cartoons and some important Portuguese people in comic form. Right from the start I knew this station was going to be interesting. So I go up the escalator and I find a huge vaulted ceiling and a book fair going on in the middle of the station. I have to admit I wasn’t too impressed with the station but that changed once I got outside and saw the architectural design of the station. The design was fairly simple but it gave the station a grand appearance.
Moving on now, I came upon the park after passing through Vasco da Gama Shopping Centre. If anyone can read Portuguese then you will notice that the name of the park translates to The Park of Nations. That being said the park displays the flags of every country in the world. As I was saying before, the Park Pass is the way to go as it gets you a two-way ride on the gondola, entrance into the Pavilhão do Conhecimento and entrance to the main exhibit at the Oceanário de Lisboa and other discount offers.
My first stop was the Oceanário it is similar in concept to the Biodome in Montreal except it focuses only on marine life. I took a few pictures while I was there and by a few I mean a lot. I even took a few videos which I plan on uploading and providing a link to. In the center of the Oceanário there is a huge tank housing various types of marine life. The two cutest exhibits, and yes I realize I’m a grown man talking about cuteness just deal with it, had to have been the otter and penguin/puffin exhibits. I also took pictures of some funny looking fish and an octopus fanning out its tentacles and swimming off. My favourite picture is one of a fish that is quite ugly but interesting. This was all in the main exhibit but there is also a temporary exhibit which is not included in the pass that costs €6,00. This time the exhibit was for sea turtles and the highlight was the glass bridge where I took a video of a turtle swimming underneath me.
My stomach started to grumble a bit so I decided to hop on the gondola to the other end of the park where you can find eateries, bars and the like. I ended up passing a sign that had something on the menu that I had always wondered what it was… a tapa. So as I was told by the waiter the tapa is a Spanish snack developed by a king who wanted to be able to drink a beer and have a snack at the same time and thus he created the tapa. Basically, tapas can either be hot foods or cold foods that are placed on a piece of bread that can be placed on your glass. I took a video and pictures demonstrating this as I decided that I had to have some for lunch. I warn you though once you start its difficult to stop and the price is per tapa so don’t get too carried away or there will be quite the bill to pay. Also when asking for a beer and you want to blend in with the locals don’t ask for beer the way you would in Mexico or Cuba seeing as we don’t speak Spanish. Instead ask for uma imperial which will have the result as saying one beer in Spanish with the added bonus of sounding normal.
After the delicious tapas and imperial I took a couple of pictures in the surrounding gardens and headed to the gondola for a return ride. Here I walked around some of the outdoor exhibits and eventually went of to the Pavilhão do Conhecimento, which is very similar to our Ontario Science Centre back home. This place really is for the little kids and the little kids inside us big kids. The design of the place is pretty solid and has some great elements to it. Inside you can sit in a lecture hall and take part in some debates, there is a free internet cafe equipped with about 12 Macs, a science lab, a crime scene investigation exhibit and much more which I sadly did not have time to visit. I highly recommend the pavilion to anyone with children.
It really was a good day to be out and about and I enjoyed myself thoroughly. Definitely a must see place for anyone whether you have kids or not and there truly is something for every age group. I’ve included a few pictures below for your enjoyment! Here ends my first post and I’ll keep adding as I go along on my journey through Portugal.
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The Global Trekker Lives On 