Guest Post - Science Museum

Outside view of part of the museum, from its park.

Recently, we had the chance to visit the CosmoCaixa science museum in Barcelona. This museum is located on a hill, with a lovely view of the city. This also, of course, means that the walk to it from the train station is uphill, but it does go along a street with very famous mansions. (Be warned: The train station has a very long staircase to go to the surface. Take the elevator.)

This museum has a stronger focus on biology than other museums, featuring an interactive exhibit about biotechnology and, unusually for a science museum, a large rainforest exhibit with live animals such as a capybara, fish of many sizes, snakes, cockroaches, and ducks. 

A portion of the rainforest exhibit. Note the fish at the bottom.

Live capybara!

It also has large slices of several types of rock (very pretty), and a somewhat optics-centric physics exhibit. The vast majority of the exhibits are on the -5 floor. (Yes, that hyphen-minus is intentional. The entry floor of the museum is floor 0, and all other floors are below it. Because the museum is on a hill, this doesn't prevent the other floors from getting natural light.)

The -5th floor, viewed from above.

Exhibits not on the fifth floor include several paid activities (a crafts room, a planetarium), a physics-themed park featuring (among other things) an Archimedes screw, a Triceratops skull, and a long spiral ramp from the 0th to -5th floor that's a timeline of Earth's history.

The museum includes both a cafeteria and a restaurant. We visited the cafeteria, where I got to try an "omelet sandwich", apparently a classic food here. It's very good.

On balance, I would recommend this museum to visitors who like other science museums.
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Edited to add one of D.'s favorite signs in the museum.