Visit the Colmar Toy Museum – We tested it with our family!

Visiting the Colmar Toy Museum with my family, this is something I wanted to do for some time. It’s one of the must-do family activities in Alsace. We finally took the plunge one winter day and we were really looking forward to it. The museum is located in the center of Colmar, in a typical street of the city.

What to see at the Toy Museum in Colmar (Haut-Rhin)?

The Toy Museum in Colmar regularly renews its display cases and presents more than 1,000 toys along a pathway spread over three levels.

The windows are organized by theme or by era, with toys from all over the world that belonged to different generations of children: this makes the visit very fun. The interest, whether you are a child or an adult, is to explore the world of our parents’ and grandparents’ toys, and even further back!

It’s really nice to talk with the kids about our childhood toys and to go back to them with stars in our eyes. Here, they can realize that some toys still exist today: Meccano, board games such as Cluedo, Barbie, Lego, Playmobil… Even if, in terms of technology, it is totally different!

At the Toy Museum, there is also a large play area accessible to the whole family, a puppet show several times a day and a temporary exhibition whose theme changes every year.

On the first floor, games area, vehicles, construction games and robots

First step on the first floor of the Toy Museum: a large hall welcomes us. Here already, the showcases are filled with many treasures: exhibitions of miniature cars and toys, which reminds me of the collection of the Cité de l’Automobile in Mulhouse, automatons and robots, a huge Playmobil model, construction games and even miniature steam engines!

In the center of the hall, a large space with games awaits us: on the side, a relaxation area with Kappla and, in the center, many wooden games. Some are very well known like Power 4 or checkers and others, less, like puzzles or a kind of Tetris. This is one of the interests of the museum: to discover games that we do not know. In fact, we could spend an hour testing everything!

On the 1st floor, puppet show, old toys by period and dolls world

At this level of the Toy Museum, there are still many display cases with lots of stories and memories to tell! This is where you can find the toys by period, 50s and 80s. What’s really fun is to come across our toys and technology from our childhood and proudly show them to the kids – Minitel, Goldorak – and even better, toys that, although updated, still exist today – Playmobils, Barbies… And even for the 50’s showcase: Meccano or Cluedo!

At fixed hours, a small puppet show animates the museum.

In the showcases of this floor, we enter the world of dolls with all kinds of dinettes, miniature sewing machines or dolls. We start from the oldest porcelain ones, to the plastic ones, without forgetting Barbie, of course, with very beautiful limited editions (Christian Dior for example) and even MY Mermaid Barbie, that I was offered at the same age as my little girl 🙂

The railway models on the 2nd floor

Here, one contorts in all directions to see the details of the railway models that are spread out over the entire second floor, which are a real curiosity of the museum. It’s nice to see the miniature trains that you can see in life size at the Cité du Train in Mulhouse: the Pullman cars of the famous Orient Express and their locomotive “La Flèche d’Or” or the Micheline that took the French on vacation when the first paid vacations! We like to watch all the details of these cities and villages reconstituted with their small playlets, sometimes hilarious. You didn’t know that modelers had a sense of humor yet?

Temporary exhibitions of the Toy Museum

Temporary exhibitions are regularly organized at the Toy Museum on various themes. Something for the whole family to enjoy!

Don’t hesitate to combine a visit to the Toy Museum with a visit to Choco Story, the Chocolate Museum! Toys and chocolate, that’s a real good idea for little and big kids, isn’t it?

My photos of the Colmar Toy Museum