London Aquarium / HMS Belfast

Yas, an expert bargain hunter, got some money-off tickets (as well as some incredibly cheap 1st class train tickets) and we went to the London Aquarium and HMS Belfast.

Nice aquarium. Lots of interesting British fish. Great to see a tank of John Dory (minus parasites!) and another with wonderfully grotesque wolf-fish. A nice seashore bit for kids with starfish, anemones etc,.. and large open tank of rays (with a spiny starfish scuttling about) which at feeding time was great to see, as well as friendly knowledgeable staff. I can't remember what the full price was but you could spend a long while there and at the time seemed reasonable. Lots of tropical and jungle fish too (if you're interested in them) and of course the big shark tank.

It was a really hot sunny day and very crowded around the county hall and Westminster Bridge. We walked along the river to the Belfast, and spent the afternoon exploring - you can go pretty well everywhere - inside the gun turrets, up to the bridge, see the engine rooms and boilers; the living spaces, galley, sick bay etc are all fitted out and convincing mannequins give good sketch of life on board. Also various interesting displays and superb model boats :)

Aquarium of the Lakes

Not bad. Though I went mainly to see the local saltwater fish there was some interesting other stuff - cave and South American fish, otters, reptiles, creepy crawlies etc.

Overall the fish looked pretty healthy (wasn't sure about a few of the freshwater ones in the walk-through tank). The shoreline discovery bit was all good and educational. The highlight could have been the large sea fish. A large shallow ~3ft deep open tank contained conger, cod, catshark, thornback ray (wonderful), and a ballan wrasse but unfortunately it was difficult to see these comfortably because the glass faced narrow and busy walkway that led to the exit. I think it was overpriced - and I really like fish and sea-life! We paid GBP 8.75 each, plus 3.00 GBP car parking.

[The lakes, and many of the rivers, looked really inviting - must take snorkel kit (at least) to the Lake District next time.]

Palma Aquarium

Rhodes

Rhodes Aquarium. 5€ ea. What can I say!? Interesting 1930's (Italian) grotto-like aquarium in the basement of the marine biology station but fish and invertebrates very off-colour. The most pitiful sight however, was the turtle and its futile and self-harming efforts to escape its tiny tank.

A recently re-furbished marine life display on ground floor inlcuded dried small animals (interesting - but you have to know what you're looking at, and what a living one looks like to appreciate), and some pretty grisly and mishappen shark and rays that look 150 years old but are actually only a few tens.

Porto Moniz

After a very nice day spent touring - a few hours at Pico do Areeiro (1817 m), a brief stop at Câmara de Lobos (which is Portuguese for 'chamber of the wolves'), and a swim, relaxed lunch stop, and explore of Ribeira Brava 'wild stream', we returned to Porto Moniz late afternoon to go to the Madeira Aquarium, housed in Forte João Batista. Located on the sea front, the little fort was built in 1730 to defend against pirates and restored in 1998 to accommodate the aquarium.

Worth a visit but slightly expensive (€7 each) for the size; I was keen to see more local fish and work out maybe what some of the things I'd seen were. There were various small tanks, some rock-pool type tank exhibits, and a nice main tank (quite full). A good thing about the aquarium was that no photography whatsoever was permitted. Flash upsets many animals and is extremely bad for some delicate fish, sea horses etc, and people generally don't know how to or are too lazy to turn the their flash off. So the pictures here are from my swim the other day (a puffer fish and goby on some red sponge).

It was also nice and quiet, with only a few other people there, and it was good to watch the fish in peace. Yas enjoyed it, watching the morays and the prawns. The tiny shop/stand sold mainly souvenirs with the aquarium's starfish logo, baseball caps etc, and no decent books. However for the foodie holidaymaker was the grandly titled Maderian Gastonomy (or something like that) so one could learn at least how to prepare the things for eating!

Crete Aquarium

Back and forth on the main road we'd seen the signs for Crete Aquarium, so after a stop at Malia palace, we went. It was on the site of an old air station. It was good size, we spent a few hours there, had a good variety of fish and marine invertebrates, and had some fairly big tanks. We paid €8 each and got the audio guide. There's labels to get the fish names in different languages. There were some tropical fish, but what I liked most was that the great majority were Mediterranean.

Though it got very crowded, it wasn't as noisy and uncomfortable as our last trip to the Plymouth Marine Aquarium - oh, that was just bad timing and French schoolkids (even their teacher had had enough and had to duck out for a gitane), and - here we go - kids manically running up and down shouting NEMO! Well I 'suppose' they're having fun and learning and all that,.. perhaps. Anyway, I didn't hear the 'N' word and once and in the intervals between the big groups it was quite nice. There was a film about a turtle that got saved after swallowing fishing gear (including a hook), and plastic bags; and various other displays. We got some reasonable pictures of the slower moving animals, and around some of the bigger tanks you can just sit and watch the fish.