Portugal with kids

One of the largest aquariums in Europe, built around a single vast central tank you circle on two levels. Thirty-four dollars.

A city zoo with a cable car over the enclosures, thirty-six dollars. A full day with a young child.

A Moorish castle on the highest hill with walls to walk and peacocks in the grounds. Thirty-seven dollars with the audio tour.

Eight dollars, Romanesque, and it survived the 1755 earthquake that flattened the rest. Half an hour.

The Portuguese crown jewels in a vault at Ajuda Palace. Thirteen dollars and rarely busy.

Fifteen dollars, and the most immediately legible gallery in the city for a child.

A red and yellow palace on a wooded peak that looks drawn rather than built. Twenty-three dollars, and book the timed slot.

A garden of grottoes and a spiral initiation well you walk down inside the earth. Thirty-one dollars and the best thing in Sintra for children.

A ruined hill fort with walls along the ridge above Sintra. Fourteen dollars and a lot of steps.

The quietest of the Sintra palaces, with a subtropical garden around it. Fourteen dollars.

Dressing rooms, the tunnel and the eagle that flies before matches. Thirty-one dollars.

Thirty-three dollars, and Lisbon's hills make this more useful than in most cities.

The Portuguese blues, sung in a small room with the lights down. Fourteen dollars for the show version.

Fifty-plus attractions plus all public transport including the funiculars. Thirty-six dollars and it pays inside a day.

Pena Palace and the coast in one guided day, seventy-three dollars, with the shuttle queues handled.

A pilgrimage site, a fishing town with hundred-foot surf in winter, and a walled village. Sixty dollars.

On the beach at Matosinhos, twenty-two dollars, with a tunnel. The reliable wet-day hour.

Two hundred and twenty-five steps up the baroque bell tower for the best view of the city. Twelve dollars.

Five dollars, fortified, with a tiled cloister. The cheapest thing in this country.

A modern art museum in a park with a raised walkway through the canopy. Seventeen dollars, and the walkway is the draw.

A projection show inside Clérigos Church after dark. Fourteen dollars and about thirty minutes.

Seventeen dollars for a concert in a small room. Cheaper than Lisbon and no less good.

Fifty minutes up and down the Douro under all six bridges in a traditional rabelo boat. Twenty-one dollars.

A sailboat rather than the tourist barges, fifty-two dollars, and much quieter.

Thirty-three dollars, with the beach and Foz on the route.

Museums and transport on one card, seventeen dollars. Cheap even by Portuguese standards.

The big-wave beach and the walled town, ninety-two dollars, on the way south.

A small animal and activity park inland, twenty-two dollars, with pools in summer. The rainy-day and too-hot-for-the-beach answer.

Trick-art rooms, fifteen dollars. An hour, and it exists for the afternoon the sea is too rough.

Into the sea caves from Lagos, including the domed one with a hole in the roof. Forty-six dollars, and cancelled on swell.

The caves plus a dolphin search off Albufeira. Sightings are never guaranteed and the boat keeps its distance.