On a cold or rainy day, these are the museums where kids get to touch, build and test things instead of only looking. Think working models of Tesla's machines, a science playroom, a tunnel that tricks your legs, and tanks to walk among outside. Several also run a kids' corner or workshops. Here's what we checked, from the Nikola Tesla Museum to the Planetarium.
The museum follows Nikola Tesla as an inventor and as a person, through authentic working models of his machines, his personal belongings and a film about his life by Dr. Branimir Jovanović.
Every visit is a guided tour, so a guide walks each group through the rooms and presents the machines. It suits school-age kids curious about electricity and inventions more than toddlers.
The museum fills the 1928 building of Serbia's first public power station, in Dorćol. On the ground floor, a science playroom lets kids feel centrifugal force, test their balance and puzzle over optical illusions, and a toy gallery shows over 150 toys from 1920 to 1970 at kid height.
The Aleksandar Despić gallery holds 400-plus objects, from steamships and old printing to the first Serbian-made computers and Tesla's induction motor.
Palata nauke is a hands-on science center with over 30 exhibits in four zones: Human, Earth, Technology and Universe. Kids can try VR and AR, see robots at work, and look at a spacesuit.
Europe's largest interactive globe, 3 meters across, shows over 500 projections of Earth and other planets from NASA data. A 36-seat dome planetarium screens 360° films, and the fifth floor has a STEAM area for preschoolers.
The Natural History Museum shows its collections here, in a small 19th-century Ottoman-style guardhouse on Mali Kalemegdan that once guarded the main approach to the fortress from Stambol Gate. Exhibitions rotate, around 60 since it opened in 1994, each on a different chapter of natural history.
Curators run talks and kids' workshops alongside each exhibition, the Green Salon side room holds mini shows, and a shop sells nature souvenirs.
The Railway Museum fills the ground floor of the 1931 Serbian Railways headquarters, with a steam locomotive parked at the entrance. Inside are scale models of steam engines, including Stephenson's Rocket, plus signal lamps and flags, conductors' ticket punches, engraved railway pocket watches, a telegraph desk and three track handcars from 1928 and 1943.
It suits train-obsessed kids as a short stop rather than a half-day outing.
A hands-on illusion museum on three levels, where most exhibits are meant to be touched and photographed. Kids walk the spinning Vortex Tunnel, shrink and grow in the Ames room, pose in an upside-down room and play poker with five of their own clones.
Inside the exhibition, a puzzle playroom has wooden Dilemma games for kids to work through between rooms.
The Military Museum sits on a bastion of the Belgrade Fortress at Kalemegdan. Inside, more than 3,000 objects fill 52 rooms: weapons, uniforms, flags and medals tracing Serbian military history from the medieval states to the wars of the 1990s.
Outside, cannons, tanks and armored vehicles from Germany, Italy, Russia, the USA and more stand around the building, including the only surviving Polish TK-3 tankette.
The Museum of Yugoslavia is three buildings, the May 25 Museum, the Old Museum and the House of Flowers, joined by a sculpture park in leafy Dedinje. The May 25 Museum opened in 1962 as a birthday gift to Josip Broz Tito, who is buried in the House of Flowers.
Exhibitions trace life in Yugoslavia through the museum's collection, and the permanent exhibition has a creative corner for kids.
The Ethnographic Museum shows how people across Serbia lived in the 19th and 20th centuries. The permanent exhibition has typical houses from different regions, town interiors, festive displays, traditional clothing and farm tools.
A Children's Corner hosts the museum's "Child and Tradition" workshops year-round, from wax-resist Easter egg decorating to wool felting. Traditional costumes and jewelry fill a second building, Manak's House.
Belgrade's largest and oldest museum, founded in 1844, fills three floors and 5,000 square meters with a permanent collection running from the Paleolithic to 20th-century art.
Kids can look for prehistoric sculptures from Vinča and Lepenski Vir, some over 8,000 years old, then hunt down paintings by Renoir, Monet and Van Gogh. Its treasures include the Miroslav Gospels, an illustrated manuscript from 1186.
The first and only museum in the region given over entirely to the arts of Africa. The permanent display shows masks, wood and bronze sculpture, goldweights, musical instruments and textiles from West African peoples such as the Dogon, Bambara and Ashanti, grouped by region with photographs and labels in English and Serbian.
Temporary exhibitions cover other parts of the continent, from Ethiopia and the Maghreb to South Africa.
A hands-on aquarium and reptile house run by the Aquaria Life association. Tanks hold fish from the Sava and Danube, the Adriatic and tropical coral reefs, plus 50 koi carp in a 6-meter tank. The reptile corner has snakes, leopard geckos, iguanas, tarantulas and scorpions, and staff can arrange time with some of the animals. Outside, a garden keeps red-eared turtles, koi and bonsai trees.
The planetarium is a star theater under an 8-meter dome, run by the Ruđer Bošković Astronomical Society, the oldest astronomy society in the Balkans. A guide projects the night sky and talks through constellations, the Moon, planets, stars and galaxies, then shows how the sky shifts through the day and the year and from different places on Earth. It suits kids who can sit through a lesson-length talk.
On a cold or rainy day, these are the museums where kids get to touch, build and test things instead of only looking. Think working models of Tesla's machines, a science playroom, a tunnel that tricks your legs, and tanks to walk among outside. Several also run a kids' corner or workshops. Here's what we checked, from the Nikola Tesla Museum to the Planetarium.
The museum follows Nikola Tesla as an inventor and as a person, through authentic working models of his machines, his personal belongings and a film about his life by Dr. Branimir Jovanović.
Every visit is a guided tour, so a guide walks each group through the rooms and presents the machines. It suits school-age kids curious about electricity and inventions more than toddlers.
The museum fills the 1928 building of Serbia's first public power station, in Dorćol. On the ground floor, a science playroom lets kids feel centrifugal force, test their balance and puzzle over optical illusions, and a toy gallery shows over 150 toys from 1920 to 1970 at kid height.
The Aleksandar Despić gallery holds 400-plus objects, from steamships and old printing to the first Serbian-made computers and Tesla's induction motor.
Palata nauke is a hands-on science center with over 30 exhibits in four zones: Human, Earth, Technology and Universe. Kids can try VR and AR, see robots at work, and look at a spacesuit.
Europe's largest interactive globe, 3 meters across, shows over 500 projections of Earth and other planets from NASA data. A 36-seat dome planetarium screens 360° films, and the fifth floor has a STEAM area for preschoolers.
The Natural History Museum shows its collections here, in a small 19th-century Ottoman-style guardhouse on Mali Kalemegdan that once guarded the main approach to the fortress from Stambol Gate. Exhibitions rotate, around 60 since it opened in 1994, each on a different chapter of natural history.
Curators run talks and kids' workshops alongside each exhibition, the Green Salon side room holds mini shows, and a shop sells nature souvenirs.
The Railway Museum fills the ground floor of the 1931 Serbian Railways headquarters, with a steam locomotive parked at the entrance. Inside are scale models of steam engines, including Stephenson's Rocket, plus signal lamps and flags, conductors' ticket punches, engraved railway pocket watches, a telegraph desk and three track handcars from 1928 and 1943.
It suits train-obsessed kids as a short stop rather than a half-day outing.
A hands-on illusion museum on three levels, where most exhibits are meant to be touched and photographed. Kids walk the spinning Vortex Tunnel, shrink and grow in the Ames room, pose in an upside-down room and play poker with five of their own clones.
Inside the exhibition, a puzzle playroom has wooden Dilemma games for kids to work through between rooms.
The Military Museum sits on a bastion of the Belgrade Fortress at Kalemegdan. Inside, more than 3,000 objects fill 52 rooms: weapons, uniforms, flags and medals tracing Serbian military history from the medieval states to the wars of the 1990s.
Outside, cannons, tanks and armored vehicles from Germany, Italy, Russia, the USA and more stand around the building, including the only surviving Polish TK-3 tankette.
The Museum of Yugoslavia is three buildings, the May 25 Museum, the Old Museum and the House of Flowers, joined by a sculpture park in leafy Dedinje. The May 25 Museum opened in 1962 as a birthday gift to Josip Broz Tito, who is buried in the House of Flowers.
Exhibitions trace life in Yugoslavia through the museum's collection, and the permanent exhibition has a creative corner for kids.
The Ethnographic Museum shows how people across Serbia lived in the 19th and 20th centuries. The permanent exhibition has typical houses from different regions, town interiors, festive displays, traditional clothing and farm tools.
A Children's Corner hosts the museum's "Child and Tradition" workshops year-round, from wax-resist Easter egg decorating to wool felting. Traditional costumes and jewelry fill a second building, Manak's House.
Belgrade's largest and oldest museum, founded in 1844, fills three floors and 5,000 square meters with a permanent collection running from the Paleolithic to 20th-century art.
Kids can look for prehistoric sculptures from Vinča and Lepenski Vir, some over 8,000 years old, then hunt down paintings by Renoir, Monet and Van Gogh. Its treasures include the Miroslav Gospels, an illustrated manuscript from 1186.
The first and only museum in the region given over entirely to the arts of Africa. The permanent display shows masks, wood and bronze sculpture, goldweights, musical instruments and textiles from West African peoples such as the Dogon, Bambara and Ashanti, grouped by region with photographs and labels in English and Serbian.
Temporary exhibitions cover other parts of the continent, from Ethiopia and the Maghreb to South Africa.
A hands-on aquarium and reptile house run by the Aquaria Life association. Tanks hold fish from the Sava and Danube, the Adriatic and tropical coral reefs, plus 50 koi carp in a 6-meter tank. The reptile corner has snakes, leopard geckos, iguanas, tarantulas and scorpions, and staff can arrange time with some of the animals. Outside, a garden keeps red-eared turtles, koi and bonsai trees.
The planetarium is a star theater under an 8-meter dome, run by the Ruđer Bošković Astronomical Society, the oldest astronomy society in the Balkans. A guide projects the night sky and talks through constellations, the Moon, planets, stars and galaxies, then shows how the sky shifts through the day and the year and from different places on Earth. It suits kids who can sit through a lesson-length talk.
