Fun Indoor Activities for Kids in Madrid: Archaeology Museum

In my on-going quest to find fun, indoor activities for preschoolers in Madrid*, I present to you the Museo Arqueológico Nacional.

Do you like sarcophagi and ancient columns? Enjoy strolling around impressive architectural spaces? Do you want to feel like you're at the Altamira Caves?  Then Madrid's Archaeology Museum is for you!

Two lovely atriums and many galleries of exhibits

Where: An easy walk from the Colón Metro station (which does not have elevators, but the museum is right across the street). Cross the Paseo de la Castellana. The giant building in front of you is the Biblioteca Nacional* (Spanish National Library). The Spanish Archaeology museum is located at the back of the same building as the National Library. You need to walk around on the sidewalk to the back half of the building, there's no way to cut through.

Cost: Free for kids, 3 euros for adults, free on Sundays. You have to pay the admission fee to see the permanent exhibits, but they have a free rotating exhibit in the basement, as well as access to the outside replica Cuevas de Altamira, the Museum shop, bathrooms, and a café in case you just want to do that.

Fun for Preschoolers rating: 7/10 recommend. It's a huge space with many floors of exhibits. This museum has it all: Roman mosaics, Greek statues, interiors of medieval buildings, columns, a replica house from the Argar civilization. They even have the pitchforks used in the Dos de Mayo. 

There is also a small replica of the Cuevas de Altamira in the garden outside the museum. Caution: it's a bit dark and spooky for little kids.

I think the ideal age for the museum is elementary school, but if you are slogging around in the July heat in Madrid or, alternately, the cold November rain, the Madrid Archaeology Museum is a nice place to explore. It is incredibly well air-conditioned. Don Loco enjoyed walking around the entire space, twice, looking for "tesoros."

There are tactile areas where visitors can touch replica artifacts. They are a bit too high up for a preschoolers to reach on their own, but it's great to be able to say "yes you can touch that" at a museum.

*Note: the Biblioteca Nacional is more of a research library--while it has a very small exhibit area, it is not interesting at all for kids. Madrid has lots of public libraries, but they are not the toy wonderlands of many public libraries in the US.