Museu da Marioneta

The Museu da Marioneta (Puppet Museum) calls itself the first museum in Portugal given over entirely to puppets. It was set up in 1987 by a Lisbon puppet company, the Companhia de Marionetas de São Lourenço, and opened in its present home in 2001. The collection now runs to more than 3,000 pieces from around the world, and more than 500 are on display. The permanent galleries were rearranged at the start of 2025 to fit in recent gifts, with more space for Portuguese puppets.

Puppets are faintly spooky and very funny at the same time, which is why this museum works for children. It’s small enough to see in about an hour, cheap (children up to 12 go free), and quiet enough on most weekday mornings for a child who finds big museums too much.

The museum groups puppets by how they move, which gives children an easy game to play as they go round: spot the strings, the rods, the hand inside, the shadow.

• Portuguese folk puppets. The star is the Bonecos de Santo Aleixo, a rod-puppet tradition from the Alentejo. The puppets are tiny, 20 to 40 centimetres tall, worked from above on wires, and performed on a little wooden stage behind a double net of strings, lit by olive-oil lamps and accompanied by a Portuguese guitar. Two characters come back in every show: Padre Chancas, the priest, and Mestre Salas, the master of ceremonies, who by tradition either hugs the priest or whacks him with a club while he preaches. Records of these puppets go back to 1798, when some were seized and ordered to be burned.
• Sicilian pupi. Armoured knights on a heavy iron rod through the head, from Palermo and Catania. Their shows retell the medieval Song of Roland, and the museum’s own description says the battles are the best bit: heads fly and blood spurts. One knight, Rinaldo, stands over a metre tall.
• Glove puppets. Portuguese Robertos, French Guignol and English Punch and Judy, who have toured England since the 17th century.
• String and shadow puppets from Europe, India, China, Java and Myanmar, and Japanese Bunraku figures, a theatre form going back to the 16th century in which several puppeteers work one puppet in full view.
• African puppets and masks. Sogobó puppets from Mali and masks from Indonesia, Sri Lanka and elsewhere, many lent by the collector Francisco Capelo. Some of the masks are big and fierce.
• Puppets in film and television. A room is given over to puppets from stop-motion animation, a good way in for children who have watched films made one frame at a time.

There is also a strong collection of Portuguese puppets from the 1970s and 1980s, including the set from a Dom Quixote puppet show made between 1978 and 1985.

The museum fills part of the Convento das Bernardas, founded in 1653 by King João IV for Cistercian nuns. The land slopes so steeply that the church and cloister sit three floors above the street, and visitors climb a staircase up to the galleries, which are the nuns’ old chapter rooms and library. The convent was badly damaged in the 1755 earthquake and rebuilt from 1786. After the religious orders were abolished it became a school, a cinema and, above all, crowded housing: about 700 people still lived here in 1997, when Lisbon city council bought and restored it. Today 34 families live in flats in the old nuns’ cells upstairs, alongside a restaurant, the neighbourhood association and the museum.

The old convent chapel, about 190 square metres with painted walls, is now the museum’s theatre, and the cloister is used for outdoor activities. There’s a small shop selling puppets.

The museum is also a working puppet venue, so check the programme before you go. The in-house company, Companhia Teatro do Museu, runs visit-shows: a short puppet performance in the galleries, then children make their own puppet to take home. In autumn 2026 the show is A Fada Oriana, based on the children’s book by Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, on 17 and 18 October, 28 and 29 November and 12 and 13 December (Saturdays 10:30 to 12:30, Sundays 15:00 to 17:00). It is for ages 6 and up and costs €10 for one adult and one child. An earlier one, O Romance da Raposa, used glove-puppet animals in a little theatre set up in the Portuguese room.

Manhãs Criativas (creative mornings) are two-hour workshops for a parent and child, usually recommended from age 6. Recent ones have made Indian shadow puppets of Hanuman the monkey king, clay characters and stop-motion animations. One in September 2025 cost €10 for an adult and a child, plus €8 for each extra child. These are family activities, so you stay with your child.

Puppet shows in the chapel are ticketed separately, at €7.50 full price or €3.75 for under-25s when checked. The Marionetas à Capela season runs weekday sessions for schools from October to December 2026, booked by email; home-education groups could ask about joining one. Each spring the museum hosts an exhibition with the MONSTRA animation festival: in 2026 it was 60 years of puppet animation from a Latvian studio. MONSTRA’s children’s programme is on our What’s on page.

The museum is open Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00 to 18:00, with last entry at 17:30. It’s closed on Mondays, 1 January, 1 May and 24, 25 and 31 December.

When checked in September 2026, adult tickets cost €5. Children up to and including 12 go free. Lisbon residents aged 13 to 18 are free; 13 to 25 year olds from elsewhere pay €2.50. Lisbon residents also get in free on Sundays and public holidays until 14:00, so bring proof of address. The companion of a visitor with a disability of 60% or more goes free. You can buy tickets online or at the desk.

Some of the masks and larger figures look unsettling to very young or sensitive children, so it may be worth showing a few photos first. The galleries are up a staircase, and the website doesn’t mention a lift, so phone ahead if you’re bringing a buggy or wheelchair. For a show, arrive on time: latecomers aren’t let in and tickets aren’t refunded.

The museum is on a narrow street in the Madragoa, an old riverside neighbourhood between Santos and Lapa. The easiest way there is the Cascais-line train to Santos, or one of the trams (15E, 18E, 25E and 28E) that pass nearby. By car, there’s a public car park about 400 metres away at Largo Vitorino Damásio.

The Museu das Comunicações is a short walk away towards Cais do Sodré, with old telephones, stagecoaches and hands-on exhibits. Tram 15E runs west along the river to Alcântara for the Museu da Carris, where you ride an old tram, and on to Belém and the power station at MAAT Central Tejo. For children who’d rather be performing than watching, Chapitô is Lisbon’s circus school.

Is the Puppet Museum free for children?

Yes, for children up to and including 12. Adults paid €5 when checked in September 2026.

How long does it take?

About an hour to go round the galleries. A visit-show or workshop takes around two hours.

Is it suitable for toddlers?

There’s nothing to stop you, and they go free, but the museum is look-don’t-touch and some masks are frightening. It suits children from about four, and the workshops are recommended from six.

Can I leave my child at a workshop?

No. The family workshops are for a parent and child together.

Can Lisbon residents get in free?

Yes, on Sundays and public holidays until 14:00, and 13 to 18 year olds who live in Lisbon are free at any time.