Tartu Toy Museum


A big hit with the under-eight crowd (and you won’t see too many adults anxious to leave), this is a great place to while away a few rainy hours. Set in one of the best-preserved late-18th-century buildings in the area, this excellent museum showcases dolls, model trains, rocking horses, toy soldiers and tons of other desirables. It's all geared to be nicely interactive, with exhibits in pull-out drawers and a kids' playroom (open 10am to 4pm).

The adjacent courtyard house is home to characters and props from Estonian animated films and TV shows. Also included in the admission price is the small museum in the basement of the Theatre House, two doors up on the corner, showcasing theatre puppets.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby attractions

1. Citizen’s Home Museum

0.06 MILES

This handsome wooden house, dating to the 1740s and nestled in one of the oldest surviving sections of the city, is furnished to show how a bourgeois…

2. St John's Lutheran Church

0.07 MILES

Dating to at least 1323, this imposing red-brick church is unique for the rare terracotta sculptures placed in niches around its exterior and interior …

3. Tartu University

0.1 MILES

Fronted by six Doric columns, the impressive main building of Tartu University was built between 1803 and 1809. The university itself was founded in 1632…

4. Tartu University Art Museum

0.11 MILES

Within the main university building, this collection comprises mainly 19th-century plaster copies of ancient Greek sculptures, plus some mummies and other…

5. Estonian Sports and Olympic Museum

0.12 MILES

Chronicling more than just Estonian Olympic excellence (although the glittering medal display serves that purpose admirably), this offbeat museum has a…

6. Sacrificial Stone

0.14 MILES

In pagan times, offerings used to be left in the cup-shaped depressions carved into this stone and the hundreds like it that are scattered throughout the…

7. Rotunda

0.17 MILES

This pretty-as-a-picture rotunda serves as a summertime cafe.

8. University of Tartu Museum

0.18 MILES

Atop Toomemägi are the ruins of a Gothic cathedral, built in the 13th century by the knights of the Livonian Order after driving the pagan Estonians from…