Things to do in Middle Franconia, Bavaria: The Best Museums

The Germanisches Nationalmuseum is the largest museum of cultural history in the German-speaking region. Setting nation-wide standards through its scientific and scholarly achievements, it carries the reputation of a dependable reference point in the museum landscape. The museum investigates art and culture in German-speaking areas in an internationally integrated and innovative way, offering educational experiences in dialogue form. Insights and results are situated within their historical contexts. The exhibition captivates visitors by the aura and presence of the original, awakening curiosity in art and culture through the narrative around it.

Nuremberg has been a city of toys since the Middle Ages. With an abundance of extraordinary exhibits from antiquity to the present, Nuremberg's world famous Toy Museum presents the "world in miniature" in 1,400 square meters of space, featuring dolls, shops, tin figures and tin toys, wooden toys and a large model train set (Track S), as well as more recent toys, such as Lego, Barbie, Playmobil, and Matchbox. The imaginatively designed children's area in the attic is staffed with trained educational personnel. Summer attractions include a large outdoor playground and a museum cafe in the secluded inner courtyard. There are audio guides tailored for adults and children to escort you through the museum, and also a droll photographic treasure hunt.

Museum under the open sky A walk around the Fränkisches Freilandmuseum is like travelling back in time through the past 700 years of rural life in Franconia. More than one hundred buildings, most of them furnished with authentic furniture from their period – farmsteads, craftsmen’s cottages, shepherd’s hut, barns, stables, bakeries, drying houses for fruit and flax, a school, a municipal building and a manor house – make for an amazing journey of discovery, showing how Franconian people lived, worked and built their homes in times gone by. Walk from village to village The buildings are arranged in sevengroups, representing different regions and themes. So, walking around the museum site feels a bit like walking from village to village, as people would have done in the past. Of particular interest are the “Middle Ages” group and the “Town” group, located in Bad Windsheim’s old town, with the Spitalkirche (hospital church), the “Museum Kirche in Franken”.

Having opened its doors in 1882, the DB Museum is now the world's oldest museum devoted to the railways. Its main building is located in Nuremberg, and it also has two other branches - one in Koblenz and the other in Halle an der Saale. Property of the Deutsche Bahn Foundation, the Nuremberg building may be old, but it is nothing if not modern, as its collections and exhibitions have been completely overhauled in recent years. The heart of the Nuremberg exhibition is a panoramic sweep of rail history in Germany from its humble beginnings around 1800 up to the present day, and even taking a look at what the future may have in store. Covering a total space of 6,800 m², it takes a different approach to most railway museums in that the history of train technology is just one aspect among many others. All of them are woven together to tell a much larger story. Scores of objects, from original locomotives to old advertising signs, are given their own interactive settings and vividly bring this tale to life. The original vehicles at the museum are another major draw for visitors. Some 40 rail legends are on show in two halls. They include the oldest surviving passenger coach in Germany, a replica of the country's first steam locomotive, the Adler, and a model of the ICE 4, the next generation of high-speed train. The museum's external exhibition space covers some 15,000 m² and includes a vintage train platform, interactive signal box and a display depot containing train-related treasures from the museum's various collections. Younger visitors can look forward to KIBALA, a railway paradise created specially for children to experiment and play with. It's got lots of buttons that need pressing, a train simulator and a miniature railway that shunts our little visitors around the entire exhibition grounds. The museum hosts different special exhibitions dedicated to specific topics, and its programme of events also includes a wide range of concerts, talks and celebrations that ensure there's never a dull moment at Lessingstrasse 6.

A former screw factory from the 1920s currently houses the museum, which showcases the history of industrialization in Nuremberg, from the 19th century to the present-day structural change. Work and private life from that time is made real again, turning exhibition pieces into players and visitors into discoverers. Young and old can watch the exciting demonstration in the historic pencil making workshop and even try their hand at printing in the print shop. In learning laboratories, young visitors can research and experiment to their hearts' content and try out computer games of yesterday and today. The motorcycle collection brings Nuremberg’s Golden Age of two-wheeler production to life.