Lisbon Zoo

The cable car over Lisbon Zoo

The ride shows you the park from above. The timetable runs from 11:30 in summer and 11:00 in winter, and the cars keep moving as you step in.

It stops in rain or strong wind, and it doesn’t run on 30 November and 28 December 2026.

Children under 12 ride only with an adult over 18 carrying ID. Wheelchairs and pushchairs can’t go on, and the zoo advises against the ride for anyone with reduced mobility, heart trouble or vertigo, and in pregnancy.

Lisbon Zoo’s tigers, savanna and primates

The rest of the zoo you see on foot, around the old Quinta das Laranjeiras estate: about 2,000 animals of some 300 species.

Tiger Valley comes first, on the main avenue just past the ticket desks, with Siberian and Sumatran tigers.

In the temple at its centre stand eight acrylic tubes, one for each subspecies of tiger, filled with polystyrene balls to show how many are left in the wild. Three are empty: the Bali, Caspian and Javan tigers are extinct.

In the middle of the park is the savanna, Savana MEO, with Angolan giraffes, hippos, elephants and nyalas, an antelope with spiral horns. Stone boundaries between the enclosures make the animals look as if they share one plain.

The Primate Temple holds chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans, and from its indoor space you see both their shelter and their outdoor enclosure.

The Iberian lynx and the dolphins at Lisbon Zoo

The Iberian lynx, the wild cat of Spain and Portugal, came close to extinction. One of the zoo’s pair, Drago, came from Portugal’s breeding centre for the species in Silves, in the Algarve, where he fathered 23 cubs, 20 of them released into the wild.

In the reptile house you’ll find a Komodo dragon, a reticulated python and an American alligator.

The dolphin presentations, 20 minutes long, are at Dolphin Bay, and they don’t go ahead with fewer than 30 people watching. The birds fly in the Enchanted Wood, the shady corner with the picnic area, except in rain or strong wind.

Lisbon Zoo tickets, hours and the Lisboa Card discount

One ticket covers every presentation and attraction in the park, cable car included. The only extra is the little Zoo Train, at €1 (50 cents for children and over-65s), which runs from Wednesday to Sunday and is sold on the spot.

The fast-track ticket costs €31 for adults, €19 for children aged 3 to 12 and €22 for over-65s, the same as at the zoo’s own desk. Bought ahead, it saves you the queue at the ticket desks.

Card discounts are given only at the staffed ticket desks, on the day: never at the machines, and never on top of a ticket bought online. The zoo is on the Lisboa Card’s list at 15% off, but its own page of discounts leaves the card out, so ask before paying.

A 24-hour Lisboa Card (€31) also covers the metro to Jardim Zoológico.

The zoo warns that it can change its hours without notice, for the weather, for the animals’ sake or for technical reasons.

Before the ticket desks there’s an area anyone can walk into, with places to eat, a shop and a cash machine. Inside, lockers cost €2 a day, and the ground is uneven in places.

The zoo lends wheelchairs at the entrance, with no booking, and hires out pushchairs for children aged 3 to 10, at €7, or €9 for a double, with a €20 deposit.

Lisbon Zoo since 1884, and Raul Lino’s lion house

Lisbon Zoo opened in 1884, and by its own account it was the first park in the Iberian Peninsula with both animals and plants. It moved twice before settling, and the Gulbenkian Foundation says the zoo spent ten years in what is now its garden.

On 28 May 1905 it opened here, on the Quinta das Laranjeiras estate in Sete Rios. Raul Lino, one of Portugal’s leading architects of the 20th century, later designed buildings and enclosures for it.

Lino’s Monkey Village dates from 1927. His lion house, built in 1931 and restored in 1955, looks like a giant castle, with a wide courtyard and a moat.

In 1934 the zoo opened Portugal’s first pet cemetery, still inside the park. Its own veterinary hospital opened in 2008.

Along the blue line from Lisbon Zoo

Jardim Zoológico, on the blue metro line, is seven stops out from Baixa-Chiado, and Sete Rios train station next door is on the Sintra line. On the metro, the Gulbenkian is one stop in and the Benfica stadium three stops out.