National Museum of Natural History, Lisbon

The National Museum of Natural History is housed in a monumental building near Príncipe Real, it also holds an exotic Botanic Garden.

National Museum of Natural History
© Turismo de Lisboa

The National Museum of Natural History (Museu Nacional de História Natural), coordinated by the Lisbon University, is one of the biggest museums in Portugal dedicated to natural history, botanic and science. It has many different temporary and permanent exhibition that aim to promote science and the understandment of the surrounding world.

Botanic Garden © Museu NHN

At the Natural History National Museum you might find 11 long term exhibitions with different themes from botanic to mathematical games, dinosaurs, minerals and many others.
Apart from these exhibitions, the Natural History Museum promotes other temporary exhibitions and different activities such as scientific clubs, Summer Science clubs, Holidays at the museum, birthday parties and much more.

In this museum you might also find many Botanic, Mineral, Geology, Zoology and Anthropology collections used on a daily base to test new scientific hypothesis.

Nearby the museum, you might find the nearby Botanic Garden, with an area of 4 hectare where you might observe different species from all over the world, specially cycads, gymnosperms, palms and tropical fig trees. There is even a Seeds Bank where many seeds from threatened species are held.

The botanic garden has the main goal of bringing society’s understanding closer to plants, the basis of life on earth.

The Natural History Museum in Lisbon also contains a fabulous butterfly greenhouse considered the first conservation and creation centre of iberian butterflies. In this space you might meet the different species on different stages of their life cycle, in the egg, as caterpillars, inside the chrysalis and as adult butterflies.

More information:

Location:

Rua da Escola Politécnica, 56

Entrance fee:

Natural History Museum:
Adult 5,00€
Under 18, over 65 and Lisbon’s University employees 3,00€
Free for children under 6 years old

Botanic Garden:
Adult 2,00€
Under 18, over 65 and Lisbon’s University employees 1,00€
Free for children under 6 years old

Unique Ticket (Museum + Botanic Garden):
Adult 6,00€
Under 18, over 65 and Lisbon’s University employees 3,50€
Free for children under 6 years old

Schedule:

Museum and Exhibitions:
Tuesday to Friday from 10am till 5pm. Weekends from 11am to 6pm
Closed on Mondays and Holidays.

Botanic Garden:
Summer (1st April to 31st October - including holidays) everyday from 9am to 8pm
Winter (1st November to 31st March - including holidays) everyday from 9am to 6pm

Butterfly Greenhouse:
Monday to Friday from 10am to 1pm and from 2pm to 5pm
Closed on holidays