Antalya Toy Museum

About this place

On the quay of Antalya's old harbour, where the boat touts are loudest, a restored old han keeps some 3,000 antique toys gathered from homes and auctions in Turkey and abroad. The metropolitan municipality opened it on 23 April 2011, Turkey's children's day, under the eye of the poet Sunay Akın, founder of the Istanbul Toy Museum, which made it the country's third such collection after Istanbul and İzmir. Entry is free, which is reason enough to step inside if you are already on the harbour. The pieces run from the 1860s to the 1980s: German tin toys from Schuco and Lehmann, Steiff bears, American and Japanese dolls, Russian-made pieces, and rare dollhouses with their tiny furniture. The layout is by theme rather than date, spread over eleven small halls: a Nasreddin Hoca figure greets you at the door, and the cartoon-character cases, Mickey Mouse, the Smurfs, Cinderella, are what children run to first. Adults tend to notice that these toys were made to be handed down, not thrown away, and that lifts the visit above simple nostalgia. Most of it sits behind glass, so small children look but do not touch; factor that in. Be honest with yourself: it is small. Half an hour covers it, an hour if you are with a child who asks about everything. Nobody should cross Antalya for it alone. Anyone passing the harbour on the way to Hıdırlık Tower or the lanes of Kaleiçi, though, will find it a pleasant shaded pause in August heat and a decent refuge from winter rain. A pushchair copes with the ground floor; the real effort is the slope and steps down to the harbour from the upper old town. It opens Tuesday to Sunday, 09:00 to 18:00, closed Monday. No ticket, no booking, just walk in. Do not confuse it with the far larger Anadolu Toy Museum in Dokumapark, Kepez, north of the centre, a separate museum run by that district's municipality and a trip of its own.