Croatia’s weirdest museums 

As well as the usual fare of history museums and art galleries — often housed in stunning old palaces — Croatia has a surprising amount of quirky and unusual museums too. 

Travelling around the country for a few weeks, we had the chance to visit several of the including the Chocolate Museum, the Museum of Illusions, Froggyland … and I kept discovering more. 

Here’s my compilation of Croatia’s weirdest museums. 

Museum of Illusions, Zagreb (and other cities)

A Croatian invention that has now gone global, the Museum of Illusions has a huge array of optical illusions. My daughter and the other kids simply loved getting involved in the illusions, while for the adults it’s fascinating to try and figure out how they work.

Museum of Broken Relationships, Zagreb 

The Museum of Broken Relationships is all about failed love relationships, and features an exhibition of personal objects left behind by former lovers, with brief descriptions. It was founded by Zagreb-based film producer  Olinka Vištica and sculptor Dražen Grubišić after their own relationship ended. 

Museum of Hangovers, Zagreb 

I didn’t feel it was appropriate to take my young daughter to the hangover museum, which is all about drunken experiences, and with an exhibition of mementos of big nights out.

Cannabis Museum, Zagreb

Another one I didn’t take my six-year-old to but wished I could was the Cannabis Museum. The museum tells the story of cannabis use throughout history — and you can even roll the tickets up and smoke them. 

Chocolate Museum, Zagreb

When we got past the crowd of schoolchildren on a massive sugar high at the entrance, we had a magical hour in the Chocolate Museum. It’s educational as it tells the story of how chocolate is made — but we also took full advantage of the taps dispensing milk, dark and white chocolate goo. Yummy! 

ZAGREB 80’s museum 

The ZAGREB 80’s museum is in the first floor of an old building, where the curators have reconstructed a piece of everyday life in the final years of Yugoslavia. Some of the exhibits include the Tomos moped and Atari and Commodore 64 video games. 

Mushroom museum, Zagreb

This educational centre has a collection of around 1,000 freeze-dried mushrooms in what surprisingly enough is the only museum in the world dedicated to mushrooms. 

Love Stories Museum, Dubrovnik

If the Museum of Broken Relationships gets you down, there’s a more hopeful and inspiring message from the Love Stories Museum in Dubrovnik, with its display of personal love stories and items of sentimental value donated by happy couples. 

Froggyland, Split

Froggyland is a unique museum with 507 taxidermied frogs, arranged in 21 displays where they appear to be going about their everyday business … sitting down to dinner, buying newspapers, teaching in a school and so on. 

Game of Thrones Museum, Split

Several of Croatia’s historic cities were used as locations in the hit TV series Game of Thrones, so it’s perhaps not surprising that the country has a Game of Thrones museum. It’s located in Split, which was the location for the city-state of Meeren in the series. As well as life-size wax figures of the cast, the museum also has authentic props and costumes from the series, and you can even sit on a replica of the Iron Throne. 

Peek&Poke, Rijeka

Peek&Poke deserves an entry on the list of Croatia’s weirdest museums for the name alone. It’s actually a museum of computer technology, started back in 2007 by two computer enthusiasts. As well as more than 1,000 computers, calculators and games consoles it also has the iconic Yugoslav Pony bicycle, which visitors can ride. 

House of Istrian Olive Oil, Pula

Not as weird as a museum of mushrooms but the House of Istrian Olive Oil is another very niche offering that tells the story of olive growing in Istria through history. You also get to taste various oils from Istrian producers — and send your kids off to the kids corner while you do it.