Toy Museum Salzburg

The Salzburg Toy Museum sits in a 16th-century building that once housed the historic Bürgerspital near St Blasius’s church. The museum grew from the private collection of Gabriele Folk-Stoi and Hugo Folk, who gathered toys made of wood, clay, tin, dolls, dolls’ houses and paper theatres. Its focus on paper theatres makes the collection unusual among European toy museums. The museum opened in 1978 and now holds Austria’s largest display of European toys from the past 250 years. After a full renovation and redesign of all the galleries it reopened in 2011. It forms part of the Salzburg Museum group, linking it to the city’s wider cultural heritage. Visitors find permanent displays of historic toys alongside changing special exhibitions on different themes. Seasonal shows, such as the Christmas Advent exhibition, add variety throughout the year. The building itself, with its old hospital rooms and nearby Baroque church, gives the visit an extra layer of historical atmosphere.