The historic collections
Mounts a century and a half old, some of extinct species.
Dark Attsios — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Chabe01 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Jefunky — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Jefunky — CC BY-SA 4.0
Yes, and it is one of Bordeaux's best options with them. The 2019 restoration built the display with children in mind: low sight lines, screens, touch stations and a **dedicated discovery floor** for the youngest. Add that the museum is not large, so it won't exhaust their patience — an hour is enough — and that it sits **inside the Jardin Public**, so you come out to lawns, a small lake and play space. That combination, a short museum plus an open garden, is what makes it work.
The **Muséum** is a natural history museum with real collections — animals, skeletons, specimens — explaining evolution and environment, and it suits younger children and anyone who wants real things to look at. **Cap Sciences** is an interactive science centre with temporary exhibitions, hands-on experiments and technology themes, better for older school-age children and for people who prefer doing to looking. With one day and small children, choose the Muséum plus the garden; with teenagers, choose Cap Sciences.
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It stands inside the **Jardin Public** in a small eighteenth-century mansion, and has been Bordeaux's natural history museum since the nineteenth century. It closed for years for a full restoration and reopened in 2019 with an entirely new display. What distinguishes it is that it **did not choose between old and new**: it kept the original historic collections — mounted animals a century and a half old, some of species since extinct, skeletons, wooden cases — but re-presented them within a modern account of evolution, biodiversity and the relationship between people and their environment. The sequence works inward from the wide world to the **local environment**: the rivers of the Gironde, its forests and marshes and the Atlantic coast — the part that gives meaning to the region you are visiting. It has a dedicated children's floor with a separate discovery space, and with its setting inside the Jardin Public it is one of the most reliable plans in Bordeaux with a family.
Mounts a century and a half old, some of extinct species.
The Gironde, its forests, marshes and Atlantic coast.
A dedicated discovery space inside the museum.
5 Place Bardineau, 33000 Bordeaux