The 17 best museums in Lisbon

With a collection of over 40,000 pieces, the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga (MNAA) has the largest number of works classified as national treasures by the state and features the most significant Portuguese public collection of ancient art, including painting, sculpture, goldsmithing, and European, African, and Oriental decorative arts. Two of the museum's highlights are The Temptations of St. Anthony by Hieronymus Bosch and the St. Vincent Panels, attributed to Nuno Gonçalves, the royal painter of King Afonso V.

The Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, designed by architects Ruy Jervis d’Athouguia, Pedro Cid, and Alberto Pessoa, was built in 1969 to house around six thousand pieces collected by its founder, Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian. The main gallery displays around a thousand of these pieces, organised into sections on Egyptian and Greco-Roman art, as well as art from Mesopotamia, the Islamic Orient, Armenia, the Far East, and the West, divided into Sculpture, Book Art, Painting, French Decorative Arts of the 18th century, and a collection of works by René Lalique. It is one of the most important private collections of international art.

The Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT), a project from the EDP Foundation, opened in Belém in 2016 with a striking design courtesy of British architect Amanda Levete. The building itself has become something of an attraction, celebrated as a beautiful new viewpoint over the Tagus River and the city. It’s particularly popular at sunset.

The MAAT complex includes the old Central Tejo, a thermoelectric power station dating back to 1908 (now called MAAT Central); the new building, known as the MAAT Gallery; and the MAAT Garden, a green space which connects the two areas. Besides temporary exhibitions and activities, the museum hosts the permanent exhibition "The Electricity Factory" in MAAT Central, as well as outdoor sculptures, notably a piece by Pedro Cabrita Reis which sits on a pier overlooking the Tagus.

After 15 years as the Berardo Collection Museum, this space returns to the management of the CCB and has been renamed MAC/CCB – Museum of Contemporary Art/Belém Cultural Centre. Inside, everything remains the same, with visitors being taken on a journey through the main artistic movements of the 20th and 21st centuries. The collection includes around 1,000 works by more than 500 artists, featuring Marcel Duchamp, Piet Mondrian, Francis Bacon, Andy Warhol, Sol LeWitt, Fernando Botero, and Andreas Gursky, among many others.

The tile (or azulejo) perfectly represents the practical spirit of the Portuguese people, who chose this traditionally humble material to decorate interior spaces and buildings. The museum, located in the Convent of Madre de Deus, showcases some of the most significant examples of Portuguese tilework, from the fifteenth century to the present day.

The National Museum of Natural History and Science, part of the University of Lisbon, aims to foster curiosity and public understanding of nature and science. It is organised into three sites: the main site in Príncipe Real, which includes MUHNAC and the Lisbon Botanical Garden; the Belém site, which hosts the Tropical Botanical Garden; and the Ajuda site, home to the Lisbon Astronomical Observatory. At the main Príncipe Real site, visitors can explore 11 permanent exhibitions, typically accompanied by six temporary ones.

In Príncipe Real, the main building (which has been designated a Property of Public Interest), the Chemical Laboratory, the Astronomical Observatory, and the Botanical Garden (a National Monument since 2010) date back to the nineteenth century, while the Royal Riding School (also classified as a Property of Public Interest) was built in 1761. With over 250 years of scientific activity (stretching all the way back to when it was the Royal Museum), the museum's collections include more than three million objects.

The first attempt to create a museum for the Lisbon Water Company’s collection took place in 1919, through a resolution by the General Assembly. However, it wasn’t until the late 1930s that the first inventory process began to organise the collection which had been gathered over two decades. Later, in 1950, following the demolition of the boilers at the old Barbadinhos Steam Pumping Station, the building underwent renovations, adding a first floor to the southern and central sections, designed to house the company’s archive and laboratory facilities. At the same time, initial steps were taken to establish a museum space. Today, the former boiler room houses the collection that forms the museum. Here, visitors can trace the evolution of Lisbon’s water supply from Roman times to the present day. The exhibition includes photographs, documents, and various objects, such as Carlos Mardel’s designs for the Mãe d’Água reservoir, as well as an example of the Bastos water meter, known as the ‘tap counter,’ which was used in Lisbon homes until the 1960s.

This former summer palace and City Museum now serves as the headquarters for the five branches of the new Museum of Lisbon (the other four sites are the Roman Theatre, Santo António, Torreão Poente, and Casa dos Bicos), which was established in 2015. The permanent exhibition at Palácio Pimenta showcases the evolution of Lisbon from prehistoric times to the early twentieth century, while the Black and White Pavilions, located in the garden, are used for temporary exhibitions.

If you want to truly feel the atmosphere of the era, head across the street to the Royal Riding Arena, but it’s here, in the more recent building, where the entire collection can be viewed from above. Below, the scale of the children's carriages brings smiles, while the Ocean Coach, part of the embassy that King João V sent to the Pope in 1716, dazzles. If you look closely at the landau (open carriage) which once belonged to King Carlos, you’ll notice bullet marks, a reminder that the king was assassinated in this vehicle in 1908.

Casa das Histórias Paula Rego is a museum dedicated to the artist Paula Rego in Cascais, housed in a building designed by 2011 Pritzker Prize laureate Eduardo Souto de Moura, which was opened in September 2009. The collection of 620 works includes paintings, drawings, and prints, reflecting her artistic and creative journey over approximately 50 years. It also features works by her husband, British artist Victor Willing, a large-scale textile piece, and part of her documentary archive. The collection is displayed in rotating temporary exhibitions.

The house of Maria Helena Vieira da Silva and her husband, Arpad Szenes, was opened in 1994 and today, it’s one of Lisbon’s most prominent museums, with exhibitions mainly focused on abstract painting. The collection of the Arpad Szenes-Vieira da Silva Museum includes a significant body of paintings and drawings covering a broad period of the two artists' work: from 1911 to 1985 for Arpad Szenes, and from 1926 to 1986 for Vieira da Silva. In addition to the couple's works, the museum's collection also includes around one hundred pieces by Portuguese artists such as Mário Cesariny, René Bertholo, José Escada, and Milly Possoz.

The Museu do Oriente aims to foster connections between the West and the East, between Asia and Portugal. Its permanent exhibitions include Portuguese Presence in Asia, the Former Cunha Alves Collection, Ivories of Goa, Chinese Fans, India in Watercolours, From the Holy Land to Japan, and the Former Bouza Serrano Collection. Alongside these, there is a packed schedule of activities, including courses, lectures, guided tours, workshops, festivals, concerts (some are free, but most require you to buy a ticket), as well as temporary exhibitions.

Located in the former Aljube Prison, the Aljube Museum – Resistance and Freedom is entirely dedicated to documenting the struggle against the dictatorship in Portugal, from 1926 to 1974. Understanding Salazar's dictatorship also means learning how the intelligence service operated, reading censorship orders, and immersing oneself in a 3D simulation of a clandestine meeting, complete with pamphlets typed on a machine enclosed in wood to muffle the sound of the keys. The museum also has testimonies of torture and episodes that challenge the understanding of Portugal as a ‘mild-mannered’ country.

The relics of the Portuguese Crown are on display at the Museu do Tesouro Real (Royal Treasure Museum), in the west wing of the Ajuda Palace. The security process to enter the building is time-consuming, but it’s worth it to get a glimpse of the collection of silverware and jewellery from the former Royal House, a collection that was partly destroyed in the 1755 earthquake and now totals more than 900 pieces. The permanent exhibition is divided into 11 sections: gold and diamonds from Brazil, Crown coins and medals, jewellery from the Ajuda National Palace collection, honorary orders, royal insignia, Crown silver, private collections, diplomatic gifts, the royal chapel, Baixela Germain and trips from the Royal Treasury.

More than just a trophy room where you can look at silverware, pennants, and medals, at the Museu Benfica – Cosme Damião you can dive deep into the history of both the club and the city. Did you know that Benfica was the national champion in underwater activities in 1960? Or that in 1918, the club hosted a visit from famed Italian tenor Tito Schipa? If the answer is no, get yourself to the Cosme Damião Museum to learn more. The museum offers various films, games, and interactive activities, but the final attraction – a penalty simulator – is a real highlight and is worth the ticket price alone. 

Located in the São Francisco da Cidade Convent, the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Chiado (MNAC), which was founded in 1911, captures the avant-garde explosion with artists like Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, Santa Rita Pintor, and Eduardo Viana, one of the members of the Orphism artistic movement. Its permanent exhibition spans the history of Portuguese art from 1850, at the start of Romanticism, through to the twenty-first century, featuring artists such as Alexandre Estrela, João Onofre, and João Pedro Vale. The collection includes all the major Portuguese names from the past 150 years of artistic movements, making MNAC an essential museum for understanding Portuguese art.

This is the final home of famed Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, where he moved in 1920. After being closed for renovations for a year, the building reopened in summer 2020 with an expanded exhibition space across three floors. The exhibition begins with a section dedicated to Pessoa's heteronyms (the fleshed-out literary personas adopted by Pessoa to allow him to move between different writing styles); the second floor houses the poet's personal library and a space for temporary exhibitions, and finally, the first floor recreates Fernando Pessoa's personal apartment. This area is more biographical and displays documents like his identity card, the apartment lease contract, personal items, and even the sheet where he wrote the famous phrase, ‘I know not what tomorrow will bring.’ Casa Fernando Pessoa also renovated its library dedicated to the poet and poetry and relocated the auditorium to the ground floor so it could operate independently from the main museum.