Nuremberg · With kids

Nuremberg with kids: things to do

By Ramya ChinnaduraiPublished 12 October 2026Updated 12 October 2026

Nuremberg packs a castle, a toy museum and a zoo into a walkable old town, which is why the tourist office sells it as a family city rather than a teenagers-only weekend. Culture here is often hands-on: toy rooms, a children's train hall, a children's museum, not a silent enfilade of paintings.

This page covers a first family visit. Prices and hours below come from official pages we opened on 12 October 2026. If a figure was missing or contradictory, it is omitted.

The Nürnberg Card for families

If you will enter more than one museum and ride trams, start with the card. The official tourist office card lasts 48 hours from first use. It includes entry to about 30 museums and sights, including the zoo, and free public transport in VGN zone A (Nuremberg, Fürth and Stein).

When we checked, the adult card (age 12 and over) was 38 euros. Children aged 6 to 11 pay 12 euros for a Kids Card with the same benefits. Accompanied children aged 5 and under get a free Kids Card if at least one adult buys a regular card. You can buy the 6-to-11 card on its own. The free under-6 card is only valid with an adult card. There is no student or pensioner discount on the card.

That pricing is the main reason the tourist office calls the card a family tip. Use it on a two-day stretch that includes the castle, a museum and the zoo, not on a single rainy hour.

The old town on foot

The Imperial Castle sits above the old town and is the orientation point for children: walls, views and a museum. The tourist office lists the castle and castle museum among the hands-on stops, and it publishes a Children's City Map you can download or order, drawn for young visitors.

Below the castle, the Toy Museum in the old town is the indoor hour that matches the city's "hands-on is the rule" line. Pair it with a snack in the lanes rather than a second museum in the same morning.

Rock-cut beer cellar tours for children exist as booked products from the tourist office. Treat them as an add-on with a time slot, not a walk-in basement.

Museums built for small hands

The DB Museum is a railway museum with a children's floor. Official family notes describe Kinder-Bahnland (KiBaLa), about 1,000 square metres of play, including the KiBaLa Express miniature train for children over 3. The children's exhibition trail with Grandpa Adler is aimed at ages 3 to 7. On the page we checked, the KiBaLa Express ran Wednesday to Friday from 9:00 to 16:30 and Saturday to Sunday from 10:00 to 17:30. The model railway on the second floor had hourly shows from 10:00 to 16:00 on weekdays and from 11:00 to 17:00 at weekends and on holidays.

Ticket prices on that official page: adults 10 euros, children aged 6 to 17 pay 6 euros, children under 6 free, and a family ticket (2 adults and up to 4 children) at 20 euros. Current DB staff enter free. School classes have a separate rate.

Kindermuseum Nürnberg, in the Kachelbau at Michael-Ende-Straße 17, is a family museum where adults work alongside children. The museum's own visitor page says it is aimed at preschool and primary ages, with the centre of gravity on primary school. Children from 3 can use some stations with a parent. There is no suitable offer for children under 3. Supervision ratio: one adult per four children. Floors are reachable by lift, and there is an accessible toilet in the foyer.

Opening hours on that page: Saturday 14:00 to 17:30; Sunday and public holidays 10:30 to 16:30; during school holidays 14:00 to 17:30, with posted closure periods. The museum is closed from July to September. It has no visitor car park and asks people to come by public transport. Book tickets before you go.

The tourist office also lists the School Museum, the Germanic National Museum, the Tower of the Senses and JOSEPHS (free admission, a workshop for testing prototypes) as family options. The planetarium offers full-dome shows for mixed ages.

The zoo and a day outside the walls

Nuremberg Zoo (Tiergarten) is the long outdoor day. The tourist office highlights the dolphin lagoon, the manatee house, Aqua Park (beavers, penguins, sea lions, polar bears), the Jako-O children's petting zoo and playgrounds. The landscaping is woodland and water meadow, so budget a picnic and a shorter loop with little legs.

Playmobil FunPark in nearby Zirndorf is the XXL-figure park the tourist office pairs with the zoo: more than 90,000 square metres, a covered indoor area and a water playground. It is a half-day outing, not an old-town stop.

The Field of Experiences for the Senses is the other outdoor listing on the families page. For a longer day trip, the tourist office also describes the Dinosaur Museum Altmühltal: a roughly 1.5 km forest path with more than 70 life-size models, plus a hall of original fossils.

Theatre and a second day

Nuremberg has several children's theatres: Theater Pfütze, Theater Salz + Pfeffer (including plays in English, and pieces for ages 3 to 5), Theater Rootslöffel and Theater Mummpitz (in the Children's Museum). Check age labels on the production, not the building.

A simple two-day shape: day one, castle and Toy Museum, then KiBaLa; day two, the zoo or Playmobil. If you visit in July, August or September, drop the Children's Museum (it is closed) and use the card at the zoo and the castle instead.

Hotels with family rooms and connecting doors are listed by the tourist office, including properties outside the old town with gardens or pools. That is a booking question, not a ranking. There is no hotel table on this page because we are not inventing rates.

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