Check out the amazing museums you can visit in Rijeka

Rijeka is much more than just a tourist city, a port, and a shipyard, as many of its museums can show you. Everyone can find something interesting in Rijeka! If you love video games, wildlife, or maybe nautical themes, you absolutely must visit these museums in Rijeka!

PEEK&POKE

The PEEK&POKE museum is a museum of old computers and computing equipment. It is one of the most interesting museums in the area because it has a large collection of 2,000 old computers, video games, and games consoles, as well as other technological developments from the last three decades. You can find truly rare objects in this museum, and there are also a lot of “machines” you can test yourself.

Natural History Museum Rijeka

The Natural History Museum Rijeka, housed in an old 19th Century villa, was established in 1876, but it was opened to the public only in 1946. Its collection consists of a wide array of museum exhibits and more than 90 thousand artefacts that are closely connected with the city and the surrounding area. If you are interested in natural history, you will definitely enjoy the collection of sponges, cnidaria, annelida, crustacea and other small animals. You can also see preserved museum specimens or parts of skeletons of amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. Explore the collection of rocks and minerals, as well as many fossils found in nearby caves. Visitors can also take a look at the botanical garden and the multimedia centre with an aquarium.

The Maritime and History Museum of the Croatian Littoral

The former Governor’s Palace now houses the Maritime and History Museum of the Croatian Littoral, where the museum exhibits from the whole county are stored and exhibited. Some artefacts are prehistoric, which school-aged children find especially interesting. You can also peruse artefacts and other valuable items from various archaeological sites, as well as whole collections, online in the museum’s digital collections. Since it is also a maritime museum, you’ll find an interesting display of ship models and nautical equipment there.

Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art

The museum was established in 1948, as a gallery. It collects art by 19th Century artists from Rijeka, as well as by foreign and domestic artists from the 20th and 21st Centuries. That means it has several important collections of art by Croatian and foreign contemporary artists. You can enjoy the museum’s collections not only by visiting it, but also online. Explore around 10 online exhibitions of sculptures, drawings, paintings, photography, etc. The museum also regularly prepares and holds exhibitions and various other events from the world of art and culture.

Pharmacy Museum

In the heart of Rijeka, you can visit a specialised museum that shows the development of worldwide and local pharmacy in a new and innovative way. It is a relatively new museum, opened only in 2020. However, it is quite popular already, and the number of visitors is growing every year.
Pharmacy does not have to be boring. Find out why the snake is a symbol of not only pharmacy, but also of medicine, who is the first to introduce quarantine in case of an epidemic, what famous chemist’s shop in Rijeka has been at the same spot for 160 years, and so on.

The award-winning permanent exhibition consists of ten units, among which the Garden of Health, or Hortus sanitatis, is especially interesting. The outer area full of medicinal and other herbs will surely captivate those who love pharmacy, but also those who are into alternative medicine. Then, there is the impressive glass timeline, showing 18 important events from the global and the national history of pharmacy. A special treat is the multimedia room, where augmented reality is used so that visitors can hear the words of a 3D animated snake, a virtual pharmacist, and other characters. The VR glasses will also give you the opportunity to virtually travel through the human body!