On day 3 of Portugal, we visited Oceanario de Lisboa in Parque das Nacoes. Parque das Nacoes was created for the 1998 World Fair with 'ocean' being the theme - the aquarium opened its doors to the world and continues to be sought-after by visitors. This park is certainly a more modern part of Lisbon where you can find a beautifully designed train station that connects with the rest of Portugal as well as a shopping center, and various public artwork. It was a rainy day so spending the afternoon in the aquarium ended up being the perfect activity for us.
I wouldn't consider this aquarium to be really big compared to some others I have seen, but it is beautifully (and carefully) designed and makes the overall viewing experience pleasant from all angles. We spent about 3 hours there and felt like we spent a good enough time at each exhibit.
The floor-to-ceiling deep ocean tank was by far my favorite. It made you feel like you were in the ocean, and the deep blue water tank right in the center of the aquarium (making it the centerpiece) provided a sense of calmness and wonder. There was a variety of marine life all coexisting, making it a beautiful scene that makes you appreciate what this planet offers.
Surrounding the water tank was the various marine life, divided into region and class, that provided a closer look at these beautiful creatures.
There were a couple of sections where I felt comfortable enough to let Zaylee loose a little bit; otherwise, she was strapped onto me for most of the visit.
Once the aquarium time was over, we spent the rest of the day walking around the park. The restaurants there reflected modernism and catered to tourism - there were more Western (and a couple of Japanese/sushi restaurants) cuisines than anything else. We, again, had some tired, hangry children so we opted for Portugal's McDonald's. We thought the offering was going to be a lot more different than what we see in the US - except for different menu names and being less salty and sweet, the offerings were about the same.
With my brother-in-law being an architect, he is always interested in checking out unique architectural designs which happened to be the train station. This one was interesting to him because of the use of concrete. We don't typically see concrete being used to form a certain design flow (besides just being blocks or posts), but the underground of this train station was completely concrete and challenged the norm that it typically serves in a structure. It was an interesting sight-seeing because you typically don't see concrete with a lot of curves or shapes.
Today (Saturday, March 16) was our downtime so we slept in and took things easy. Some of us went out to a local restaurant in Azeitao for some picanha (pronounced pee-KAHN-ya) and boy was it so good! We may have had to bust out our translator app on our phone (thank goodness for very accessible technology) to understand the menu, but it was so worth it.
