Museum Day in Lisbon

The weather turned cooler on Wednesday so we headed to the museums- Pete and the kids to highly recommended Aquarium, the Oceanario and me to the National Tile Museum (Museu Nacional de Azulejo). Both were excellent!

The tile museum is housed in a former convent just outside of downtown. After my successful tile class, I have a dream of creating my own custom tiles one day for a feature in our home. There was a lot of inspiration to be had here!

Lisbon in tiles. A fraction of the size of the city panorama they had on display.

The kids were having fun over at the aquarium and we met up after to play in the Jardins de Agua (water gardens) and have some yummy pizza lunch. This area was well out of town, but had a lot of other cool things that you could spend an entire day seeing: science museum, ariel cable car, gardens. I love that Maeve naps, but I also look forward to the time when our schedule isn't dictated by it! We had a wonderful Portuguese history lesson from our Uber driver on the way home though!

I needed to pick up my tile and Pete found a vintage clothing store he wanted check out so we took tram 28 one last time and had a low key afternoon at the playground. Then we bused back to the Time Out Market to get some dinner, thankfully sans tantrums this time! 

Maeve was hilarious this trip, going down slides on her belly and loving it. 

Jude's become quite the climber!

Day Trip to Belem

We spotted Belem, an area west of Lisbon from the train to Cascais 2 years ago. There was a beautiful monastery building, some gardens and bingo- a playground! We didn't have time to check it out then so we made a point to go on this trip. 

Sunrise in Lisbon

There were so many ways to get around Lisbon- bus, historic trams, walking and Ubers, which were ridiculously cheap. This morning we opted for a bus since we had the stroller with us. On every mode of public transit, the locals would go out of their way to make sure that the kids and I had a seat. This was particularly impressive on the super crammed trams when either a straphanger or the driver would tell someone seated to get up for us. This type of gentility is not often seen in big cities, NYC and Amsterdam being my points of reference, so it was really refreshing and made me love the city even more.

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We arrived before the 10am opening time at the monastery so we walked around a bit, got tickets and impatiently waited in line. 

Once inside, I was thrilled to see the wide open courtyard between the cloisters and the other children already playing there. It gave me the chance to savour the building and take pictures.

Ways to entertain children at cultural sites:

Let them take turns playing horse.

Don't frown upon their desire to play "toliet tag" in such a holy place.

Make them laugh.

We found the playground and started picnicking while Pete went to the National Archeology Museum. 

Chasing the persistent seagull that wanted in on our picnic.

Then I headed to Pasteis de Belem for the pastel de natas that everyone raves about. We found the flavor a bit too carmelized, but loved the jam filled donut.

The monument for Henry the Navigator. 

Incredibly carved figures

During nap time, Pete took Jude to the Natural History and Geology museums. Then they went to a playground that we had discovered on our visit two years ago. Maeve and I eventually made it there to meet them after a few tram mishaps!

Good night, Lisbon!