I have to admit that Nuremberg amazed me by the quantity and variety of museums it offers: I found many interesting places to visit, others a little less, but I would say all good to get an idea of the city.
A small premise that applies to (almost) all the museums of Nuremberg: the explanations are always only in German (except for some sporadic cases, the 0.00001% of the total)! Unless, therefore, you do not know German, I advise you to take the audioguide every time you visit a museum in Nuremberg.
I begin with what could be a particular advice for families with young children, although I think it can be interesting for adults too: I’m talking about the Toy Museum which, in more than 1,400 m2, tells the Nuremberg tradition regarding toys. The exhibition is subdivided by type of toys and proceeds in time order: on the ground floor, we find wooden toys, on the first floor the dolls (with their adorable houses) and the optical devices. The next levels hold the collection of tin toys by the Lehmann company, one of most famous collections of this type in the world, an exhibition of cars, trains and steam engines and, on the top floor, all the latest games such as Lego and Playmobil and Barbie. Also noteworthy is the presence of an area dedicated to children. The museum is located on Karlstraße 13-15 and is open Tuesday to Friday from 10:00 to 17:00 and Saturday and Sunday from 10:00 to 18:00.
If you are in Nuremberg, you can’t miss the visit to the Albrecht Dürer’s House, home-laboratory of one of the greatest artists and graphic designers of his time. The bourgeois residence of the Nuremberg “gold period”, this is one of the few houses of the sixteenth century still intact (among those belonging to an artist). Although it has been restructured, the building even gives a good idea of the atmosphere in which this great artist lived and worked. The admission fee costs € 5 and the address is 39 Albrecht-Dürer-Straße; the visiting hours change according to the days and time of the year:
Tuesday to Friday 10 am to 5 pm;
Thursday, Saturday and Sunday from 10 am to 6 pm;
[July – September and Christmas Market period also opened on Mondays from 10 am to 5 pm]
Not far from the Albrecht Dürer’s House is located the Nuremberg Castle. It was erected as an imperial residence and also assumed military functions from the second half of the fifteenth century. Inside there are several buildings to visit, and I advise you not to limit yourself only to some parts, unless it’s near the closing time, because I believe that to understand it entirely you must visit it all. The deep well dug into the rock up to a depth of 47 meters, is located in the middle of the inner courtyard. Next to the deep well room is the Sinwell round tower (“sinwell” in the High Middle Ages German meant “very round”), built around 1560. Its function was evidently that of a tower for the castle itself; the view over the city can indeed be worth the 80 steps that separate visitors from the top of the tower.
Inside the museum are exhibited findings from archaeological excavations, elements of ornamental architecture and models: all organised to tell in the best way the history of this prominent place in the city history (Nuremberg was, until the Thirty Years War, the central location of the Germanic empire). The cumulative ticket for the visit to all the buildings costs € 7. The address of the castle is Burgverwaltung Nürnberg Auf der Burg 13. The opening hours vary depending on the time of year:
From April to September: every day from 9 am to 6 pm;
From October to March: every day from 10 am to 4 pm;
Christmas Market period: Monday to Friday from 10 am to 4 pm; Saturday and Sunday from 9 am to 4 pm.
I found the Germanic National Museum a fascinating place to visit: : founded in 1852, today it is one of the largest museums on the history of German-speaking world culture (it seems that in this gallery there are about one million three hundred thousand pieces). Among the many pieces on show inside you can find the works of Albrecht Dürer, Veit Stoß and Rembrandt, the first terrestrial globe, the world’s first pocket watch and, finally, the most extensive collection of historical musical instruments in Europe. If your stay in the city is in a period of huge tourist presence in the town, I suggest you go to visit this museum early in the morning: on a Tuesday morning at 09.45, I found quite a lot of people already lined up ready for the visit. The entrance ticket costs 8€ and, as regards the opening hours and all other information, I refer you directly to the tourism board official website.
I recommend you also visit the transport museum, which was founded in 1899 and now called “DB Transport museum” because in 1996 it became the museum of the Deutsche Bahn company (the company that manages German transports among Germany). To date, it’s the oldest railway museum in Germany. The exhibition space is 2,500 m2, covers two centuries of railway history, and there are 10,000 objects, about 70,000 graphic works of different eras, nearly a million photographs, a library with 70,000 volumes, 180 models in 1:10 scale and over 120 original vehicles. Since it was not possible to display all the vehicles in Nuremberg, two branches of the museum were opened in Koblenz and Halle (Saale). The museum address is Lessingstraße 6; it is open from Tuesday to Friday from 09:00 to 17:00
and on Saturday and Sunday from 10:00 to 18:00; the admission ticket costs 5€. On the top floor of the same building was set up the Museum of Communication. The exhibition is divided according to the areas of communication: sound, images and writing and, naturally, communication via the Internet. More than 400 objects are exhibited in the rooms, including old postal vehicles, and many interactive stations seem to entertain even the biggest ones as well as children (and teenagers).
The museum is part of the Swiss Post and Telecommunications Museum Foundation. The museum is open Tuesday to Friday from 9:00 to 17:00, and Saturday and Sunday from 10:00 to 18:00 (same time also for holidays); in the period of toy and Christmas market opening even on Monday from 9:00 to 17:00. The admission ticket it’s the same you buy for the transport museum.