Interactive science museums in Spain to visit with kids
Foucault pendulums, planetariums, indoor tropical forests and rooms where you can touch everything: interactive science museums are the perfect day out with children, rain or shine. These are some of the most complete in Spain.
Parque de las Ciencias de Andalucía (Granada)
A large science campus with buildings such as the Foucault Pendulum and the Macroscope, pavilions such as Journey into the Human Body and Explora, a planetarium (and a children’s one too), an observatory, a Tropical Butterfly House, the Birds of Prey in Flight show and the BioDomo with ecosystems from the Indo-Pacific, Madagascar and the Amazon.
Ideal for: devoting a whole day to it on a break in Granada.
Museu de les Ciències (Valencia)
Inside the City of Arts and Sciences. It is designed for experimenting with your own senses: most of its exhibitions are interactive, and it offers workshops and astronomical observations.
Ideal for: combining with the Oceanogràfic and the Hemisfèric in the same complex.
CosmoCaixa (Barcelona)
Barcelona’s science museum, whose most famous feature is the Bosc Inundat, which recreates a stretch of the Brazilian Amazon with plants, fish, reptiles, birds and mammals, and even simulated tropical rain.
Ideal for: a different morning in Barcelona with curious children.
Museos Científicos Coruñeses (A Coruña)
Three museums in the city. The Casa de las Ciencias has a planetarium and a Foucault pendulum in the central stairwell. The Domus, in a building by Arata Isozaki, is devoted to human beings and presents itself as the first interactive museum in the world devoted entirely to them. The third is the Aquarium Finisterrae.
Ideal for: a science weekend in A Coruña.
Eureka! Zientzia Museoa (San Sebastián)
In the Miramón Technology Park. It has a digital planetarium with family sessions, the Animalia area with ecosystems and live animals, and driving and flight simulators.
Ideal for: an indoor day out in Gipuzkoa.
Museo de la Ciencia de Valladolid
Beside the river Pisuerga, in a building by Enrique de Teresa and Rafael Moneo. It has exhibitions on energy, water, the brain and mathematics and a digital planetarium; on the other side of the footbridge, the Casa del Río explains the Pisuerga ecosystem with aquariums and terrariums.
Ideal for: families from Castilla y León and breaks in Valladolid.
Museo de la Evolución Humana (Burgos)
In a building by Juan Navarro Baldeweg, it displays original finds from the sites of the Sierra de Atapuerca, such as the Miguelón skull, the Elvis pelvis and the Excalibur hand axe. More than a hands-on science centre, it is a museum for understanding where we come from.
Ideal for: slightly older children interested in prehistory.
Museo Elder de la Ciencia y la Tecnología (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria)
On the Muelle de Santa Catalina, it is run by the Government of the Canary Islands and schedules dome (fulldome) screenings every day.
Ideal for: an indoor day out in Gran Canaria.
Tips for going with children
Check the museum’s website first: temporary exhibitions, family activities, whether you need to book and whether the planetarium is paid for separately.
Head first for what interests you most and plan breaks: large museums are tiring, and it is better to leave wanting to come back.
If your child is sensitive to noise or darkness, find the quiet areas and the dark rooms such as planetariums or simulators beforehand.