Author's product rating: 
| Advantages: |
Very modern facilities for kids |
| Disadvantages: |
Seems very out - of - date and forgotten compared to other places in Milan |
| Recommend to potential buyers: |
yes |
We visited the Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci in 2007. We had a job finding it as many locals we asked hadn't heard of it or didn't know where it was, and even one road away we saw no indications that it existed at all. We eventually found it (via San Vittore 21, about 5 minutes walk from S. Ambrogio station on M2, the green line).
Entry cost €8 each which, after looking around, we thought was a bit excessive. If it's going to go towards making the rest of the museum modern and interactive as the labs for schoolchildren, maybe we will go back. You get a little map of the museum with contact details on the back (would have been helpful in finding the place). It's probably a good idea if you're planning a visit to have a look on their website to get the map and travel directions first. Also note that the whole museum is closed on Mondays.
The building itself is quite nice. It used to be a monastery and you can tell. It's very peaceful and pretty. More importantly, there are plenty of toilets (useful to know if you're travelling with a pregnant woman or young kids).
Now the exhibits. Most enjoyable was the huge da Vinci room. It's a long hall displaying drawings of his inventions, with small-scale reconstructions. A lot of the information is written in both Italian and English. The smaller rooms (sound, musical instruments, astronomy, energy) weren't really memorable. Quite a bit of space is dedicated to metallurgy (almost as big as the da Vinci room), which the fellas and the kids seemed to enjoy. There are big exhibits for film and radiocommunications which is very informative if you can understand Italian. There are lots of toys to play with here. There is a nice exhibit downstairs in a cellar-like room about the Falck company. It was mostly in Italian but is enjoyable even if you don't understand what they're saying about it.
Outside they have a big shed (the Rail Transport Builing) full of trains which are impressive, but it's not very interactive and you can't get close enough to really see them. It's set out like a train station with platforms, but you can only walk a little way down and there was a guard whose only job seemed to be shouting at people who get too close to the yellow line!
Dotted around the museum are very hi-tech looking rooms called 'i-labs' where kids can get 'hands-on' experience of doing science, but they were locked when we were there. It looks as though they are reserved for school groups. The rest of the museum looks pretty old and dull by comparison.
There were some additional exhibits for which you needed to buy extra tickets. We didn't bother as we were only there for an afternoon and it didn't seem worth it.
After visiting the museum as a child it was a bit of an anticlimax returning as an adult. I'd recommend going if you have children around 10 years old (you can get a family ticket), or if you have an afternoon to spare, but don't get up at 7 and go out of your way to spend the day there.
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