Culture and Kids in Portugal
How to mix children with museums, churches and historic sights
Beaches, castles and child-friendly hosts make Portugal a perfect destination for children, but it may take a spooky chapel to lure them to attractions you want to see
Portugal is an easier destination for children than much of the rest of Europe, partly because of the castles that seem to crown every town. Kids can clamor up the stone
stairs, walk the ramparts, defend the towers against imaginary armies, rescue princesses (or be rescued). Castles are easy, and beaches plentiful. At Ourem are dinosaur footprints, and older kids will appreciate the Roman towns that have been unearthed and the Roman roads that are still in use.
But parents may want to spend some time seeing some of the vast wealth of artistic, historic and cultural treasures that Portugal offers. How do you get kids involved and interested in these, especially when so many of them – as is true anywhere in Europe – are in museums and churches?
Mammoth carved and gold-covered altars with paintings of the Annunciation and the martyrdom of saints get pretty old pretty fast, especially when you’re 10 years old. So do quaint old towns, unless, like Monsanto, the houses are built among and into giant boulders that appear about ready to tumble down the mountainside, house and all.
Kids like things they can identify with, colorful things, things that fire their imaginations. And they have a rare taste for the bizarre -- the more gruesome the better. By finding a few churches and museums that kids can identify with and like, you can increase their tolerance and encourage them to try more. And with a little help from parents they will begin to notice cool things in the most unlikely places.
One museum that is appealing for kids has just opened in Braganca, the Museum of Carnival Masks. Glass cases with changing colored lights show off brilliant, fanciful costumes and masks on life-sized figures, just as these costumes are worn in the annual carnivals in Spain and Portugal. Some of the costumes are scary, some funny, some fanciful and all fun to look at (and imagine wearing). Upstairs an entire case shows how masks are carved from a chunk of wood. The museum is small, free and there’s not a single dusty old relic in it.
In Lisbon, near the Belem monastery (be sure they look for the pillar there that’s carved like a palm tree) is the Museum of Coaches. Along with the huge coronation carriages covered in gold curlicues, always popular with kids, are the coaches of princes and princesses, easy for kids to imagine themselves riding in.
Churches may be a harder sell, but they, too have their moments. Make a habit of going to the choir stalls and lifting the hinged seats. Under these you’ll often find carved lifelike and life-sized grimacing faces, called misericords. Before you know it, when they get to a church the kids will be asking in Portuguese for the coro alto.
One sure-fire way to get kids interested in churches is to locate one of Portugal’s ossuaries, or bone chapels. Entire chapels are lined with human skulls and bones, often arranged in elaborate patterns. Creepy, yes, but what kid doesn’t love creepy? Look for these at the Carmelite church (Igreja do Carmo) in Faro and Sao Francisco in Evora. There are a few others scattered around, too – enough to keep them looking for the magic words Capela de Ossos on signs.
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