Turin Egyptian Museum with Kids: The Complete Family Guide

Two things make the Museo Egizio unusually good with children, and one thing makes parents hesitate.

The good: children aged 6–14 pay €1, and the museum runs a free character-led audio trail in which kids hunt through the galleries for a cat called Miu, following a trail of paw prints. It’s properly made, not an afterthought.

The hesitation: there are real human mummies on display, including a dedicated room built around them.

This guide covers both honestly, plus what actually holds a child’s attention here, what’s currently closed for renovation, and how to plan the day so it works.

Disclosure: we earn commission on tours booked through our links. The best option for most families here is the free audio guide, which earns us nothing.

Family facilities here are the most renovation-sensitive information on this site — two things families would normally rely on are currently unavailable — so check anything you’re building a day around. Live availability for the small-group tour that works best for families who want a guide is here:

The short version

Best age: roughly 6 to 11. Italian primary schools teach ancient Egypt around Year 4, which is why the museum is thick with school groups — and why kids of that age arrive already primed.

Under 5? They can enjoy it, but you’ll be operating the audio guide for them and managing a shorter visit. Expect 60–90 minutes.

Ticket prices:

Note the family ticket costs exactly the same as two adult tickets, so it effectively includes both children. Book online — full ticket guide →

Realistic visit length with children: two hours of highlights. Adults alone could spend four.

The free family audio trail — start here

This is the single best thing the museum does for families, and it’s included with admission.

Load the museum’s free web app on your phone using the museum wifi (bring headphones), and select the family route. It runs about 90 minutes, is narrated in a child’s voice, and is built around four characters: Kha, the real ancient Egyptian architect whose tomb is in the museum, his wife Merit, an Egypt-obsessed character called Schiapp, and a young archaeologist, Cody.

The premise: a cat called Miu — a goddess in disguise — is hidden somewhere in the museum, and children follow a trail of cat’s-paw symbols through the galleries to find her.

You also get a free printed treasure-hunt map at the desk, illustrated by the children’s publisher Franco Cosimo Panini, which keeps kids oriented.

Languages: Italian, English and French only. If you need another language, plan for a guided tour instead.

Best for around 7 and up. Younger children lose the thread and need a parent driving it.

Worth doing before you go: the museum runs a dedicated kids website with themed itineraries, games and videos. Priming a child on the way to Turin measurably improves the visit. There’s also a Pimpa picture book set in the museum, available in the shop and downloadable free in a symbol-communication version.

The honest answer on mummies

Parents ask this more than anything else, so here it is plainly.

What’s on display: 24 human mummies and 17 animal mummies, plus other human remains. The first appear on the second floor; the richest funerary material is on the first floor, including a dedicated room called Alla ricerca della vita — “In Search of Life.”

How they’re presented: respectfully, not sensationally. Remains are in conservation cases. In the dedicated room, six bodies — chosen to represent the stages of a human life — become visible only when a light is activated, so the encounter is a deliberate reveal rather than something you walk into unprepared. The museum has an ethics committee overseeing how remains are displayed.

The framing throughout is cultural rather than macabre. Mummification is explained as a careful, skilled process undertaken by people who genuinely believed in preserving the body for the afterlife, and the coffins and funerary objects emphasise the humanity of the individuals inside — their names, their professions, the faces painted on their coffin lids, the food and personal objects placed beside them.

Some are unwrapped. One mummy has an unbandaged face with visible hair and closed eyes. Several parents describe it as the moment that gave them goosebumps.

You can plan around it. The museum marks every display of human remains with a mummy symbol on its own floor maps. If your child is sensitive, use the map to route around the flagged cases and skip the Alla ricerca della vita room entirely.

How children actually react: overwhelmingly with fascination rather than fear. Parent accounts consistently describe children standing transfixed rather than frightened — a five-year-old frozen in wonder, a six-year-old captivated. One frequently repeated verdict from Italian family bloggers: they worried the mummies would scare the little ones, and the route was so engaging that it simply wasn’t a problem.

Animal mummies are easier — cats, crocodiles, ibises, falcons, baboons — and are often the highlight. Which fits neatly, given the whole family trail is a hunt for a cat.

Our advice: for confident children aged 6+, don’t overthink it. For under-5s or anxious children, preview the map, skip the dedicated room, and let the animal mummies carry the interest.

If you’re building a whole family day around this, Turin does more of it cheaply than almost any Italian city — Museo Egizio guided and family tours, Palazzo Reale and the Musei Reali, Palazzo Madama on Piazza Castello, the Mole Antonelliana and its National Cinema Museum with the panoramic lift, Parco del Valentino on the river, and day trips out to the Reggia di Venaria Reale.

What age is the museum suitable for?

Children aged 5 and older typically engage meaningfully with the Museo Egizio. Below that age the collection asks for sustained attention most very young children haven’t developed yet. A 3-year-old will enjoy some of the visual drama — the large statues, the colourful painted coffins — but is unlikely to sustain focus for more than 30–40 minutes.

From age 5, children begin to connect with the stories the museum tells: pharaohs, mummies, hieroglyphs, the idea of things buried for thousands of years.

Ages 6–11 get the most out of a visit, and 8–12s particularly so with a good guide. Children in this range are old enough to understand historical scale, to decode simple hieroglyphs with guidance, and to engage with the forensic questions the collection raises. Why was the tomb of Kha sealed so carefully? What did the people who built the pyramids eat for lunch? These are questions with real answers in this museum.

Teenagers respond well to the scholarly depth of the collection, particularly if they have an interest in history, archaeology or ancient civilisations. A small-group or private tour is a better fit for older children than a family-specific one.

What actually holds a child’s attention

Reliable winners:

• The Gallery of the Kings — reopened in November 2024 in a dramatic redesign by the architecture studio OMA. You enter through a dark, temple-like passage with projections, then emerge into light-filled halls of monumental statues. The five-tonne colossus of Sethi II anchors the far end. This is the room children remember.
• The Tomb of Kha and Merit — and this is the sleeper. It’s packed with ordinary things: furniture, beds with headrests, clothing, cosmetics, Merit’s wig made from real hair, a board game, a bronze razor, Kha’s sealed basket of bread, and actual food left for the afterlife. Children connect with a 3,400-year-old dinner far faster than with a statue. The 3,400 years between Kha and the present collapse in that moment.
• The animal mummies
• The sphinx avenue at the entrance
• The statue of Ramesses II — seven tonnes of black granite, seated, in absolute composure. Children stand in front of it and go quiet in a way that is recognisable as genuine awe.
• The Temple of Ellesiya — an actual rock temple from Nubia reassembled inside the museum, which children can walk into. That physical experience needs no explaining. It also has its own free entrance on Via Duse, which is worth knowing about (more free Turin here).
• The Papyrus of Iuefankh — a Book of the Dead over 18 metres long, which is exactly the kind of absurd scale kids enjoy
• Hieroglyphs, especially if a child can spot their own initial or decode a royal cartouche

Hands-on elements: the 2024–25 renovation added real multimedia. One gallery includes a table of resin replicas children can freely handle — worth seeking out, as it’s often the only thing in a museum a child is allowed to touch.

What bores them: long runs of pottery typology, papyri cases and text-heavy panels. Don’t fight it. Follow the cat-paw trail, let them skip cases, and head for the statuary and the Tomb of Kha.

Realistic attention span: 45–90 minutes of genuine engagement from a 6–8-year-old. An Egypt-obsessed 10-year-old will happily do two hours or more. How long you need overall →

Practical logistics

Currently closed — check before you plan

Two things families would otherwise use are unavailable during the renovation:

• Spazio ZeroSei, the dedicated under-6 play space, has been closed since mid-2024 with no announced reopening. Don’t build a visit around it.
• The cloakroom is suspended. You cannot leave jackets, bags, umbrellas or luggage. A few small lockers take school-sized backpacks only, first-come. Suitcases, trolleys and large backpacks aren’t allowed inside, and there’s a bag check before the ticket desk.

Travel light. This is the single most useful practical instruction on this page, and it reverses the advice most family guides to this museum still give.

Strollers and access

No architectural barriers, strollers welcome throughout, lifts to all four floors (staff may assist). Baby-changing tables and child-height toilets are provided, though some basement facilities have been closed by the works — ask staff for the nearest.

The quiet room

There’s a sound-insulated quiet room on the second floor, created as part of the museum’s accessibility programme. Ask gallery staff for access. Parents use it as a calm space to rest, feed a baby or let an overstimulated child decompress.

If your child has sensory sensitivities, locate it on arrival rather than when you need it.

Food

There’s a café on the first floor, reachable from the Tomb of Kha room, open roughly 10:00–17:00 (shorter on Mondays). Plan a break there mid-visit — it’s the difference between a good visit and a meltdown.

Outside, Piazza Carignano and the surrounding streets are full of family-friendly options. The interior courtyard planted with Egyptian flora is a good decompression spot too.

When to go

Best: weekday mornings, or late Saturday afternoon — the museum stays open until 20:00 on Saturdays.

Worst: midday at weekends, and mid-morning on spring weekdays, when primary school groups arrive en masse.

Opening hours are Monday 9:00–14:00 and Tuesday–Sunday 9:00–18:30, with the extended Saturday closing.

Sensory considerations

The museum has invested seriously in accessibility. Beyond the quiet room, there’s a downloadable social story (Italian and English) letting a child preview the visit, symbol-based communication guides borrowable at the desk or downloadable, easy-read thematic sheets, and simplified signage with tactile maps on each floor.

One caveat worth knowing: some rooms use ambient scent diffusers with a bespoke fragrance containing common allergens. If your child has olfactory sensitivities or allergies, contact the museum before visiting.

The museum’s own advice for sensory-sensitive visitors: pre-select which rooms to see, split the visit with breaks, and avoid weekends.

Keeping young children engaged

• Arrive at opening time (9:00) or book an early slot. Young children are at their best early in the day, and the galleries are quieter.
• Build in the café break rather than pushing through.
• Let children lead in some galleries. If a child is fascinated by a particular coffin or object, stop and look at it properly rather than pulling them along. The museum rewards attention.
• Normal family noise is fine — the galleries are not conducted in cathedral silence.

Should you book a family tour?

Three options, in ascending order of cost.

1. Independent with the free audio trail. Best for most families, and outstanding value: €18 plus €1 per child, with a well-produced 90-minute trail and a printed map. Flexible, pausable, and you control the route around the mummies.

2. A third-party family tour. The dedicated option here is the Egyptian Museum Guided Tour for Children and Families, from €38, which bundles entry with a guide working through quizzes, treasure hunts and a curated highlights route rather than marching past everything. Read its recent reviews before you book — it carries only 21 of them at a 4.3★ average, well below every other Museo Egizio product on the platform, so the free family trail is the safer default unless this exact format is what you need.

Two things to verify before booking any family tour: many run in Italian only, and most set a practical minimum age around 8. Check both in the listing. If you want a guide and the family-specific format isn’t essential, the Small Group Skip-the-Line Guided Tour caps at nine guests with an archaeologist guide, from €49 and rated 4.8★ across 1,544 reviews — a calmer room than a large group, and a much deeper review base to judge from.

3. The museum’s own Egyptologist. Around €50 for 60 minutes or €85 for 90 minutes in Italian for a group of up to six, plus admission; €70 or €100 in English, French, German or Spanish. Foreign-language visits must be booked by phone or email.

Is a private guide worth it? For two or more children, or a genuinely Egypt-mad child, often yes — someone who can pace to the kids and field endless questions is worth real money in a museum this large. For one engaged child on a budget, the free trail is enough. The Private Guided Tour runs from €120 for the group (4.7★, 206 reviews). Full tour comparison →

Whichever you choose, booking through GetYourGuide gives free cancellation up to 24 hours before. For families that flexibility is worth something real: plans change, children get sick, weather affects mood.

One for local or repeat families

The museum sells an under-14 membership for around €20 a year: unlimited free entry for the child, a reduced ticket for one adult, a passport to collect stamps, a kids’ newsletter and a shop discount. If you’re in Piedmont or visiting Turin more than once, it pays for itself on the second visit.

Turin with children beyond the museum

Museo Nazionale del Cinema, in the Mole — the top family pick after the Egizio. Interactive throughout, plus the glass panoramic lift up the middle of the building. Expect a lift queue; buy the combined ticket.

MAUTO, the automobile museum — very interactive, stroller-friendly with lifts, changing tables and high chairs, weekend family workshops. Children 6–17 around €8, under-6 free.

Parco del Valentino — playgrounds, riverside paths, a rock garden and bike hire. Free. Note the Borgo Medievale inside it has been closed for restoration, with reopening expected in 2026 — check before making the trip.

Museo Regionale di Scienze Naturali — reopened in 2024 after more than a decade closed following a fire. Confirm which halls are open.

Infini.to planetarium at Pino Torinese — space museum plus a planetarium show, best for around 6 and up.

MAcA — hands-on environmental museum, good for younger, curious children.

Rainy days are well covered: all of the above are indoor, and Turin’s porticoes mean you can walk much of the centre without getting wet. More free options →

The Torino+Piemonte Card and families: each card admits one accompanying child under 12 free at included museums, which is a real saving. But note the Egizio’s child ticket is already €1, so the card pays off mainly if you’re also doing pricier sites like Venaria, MAUTO or the Cinema Museum.

Crowds and keeping children close

The museum drew a record 1.27 million visitors in 2025, up nearly 23% year on year. The Gallery of the Kings and the Tomb of Kha get genuinely congested at midday and on weekends, and the statuary halls are deliberately dark.

Keep children close in those rooms, and — since lost-child procedures aren’t published — point out the ticket desk as a meeting point when you arrive.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Egyptian Museum in Turin good for children?

Yes, particularly for ages 6–11. There’s a free character-led audio trail in which children hunt for a hidden cat through the galleries, children aged 6–14 pay just €1, and the collection includes plenty of relatable everyday objects alongside the statuary.

Are there mummies at the Museo Egizio, and will they scare my child?

There are 24 human mummies and 17 animal mummies. They’re presented respectfully in conservation cases, and one room reveals six bodies only when a light is activated. Most children find them fascinating rather than frightening, but the museum marks all human remains with a symbol on its floor maps so you can route around them if needed.

How much do children pay at the Egyptian Museum in Turin?

Under-6s are free, ages 6–14 pay €1, and 15–18s pay €3. A family ticket for two adults and two minors is €36 — the same price as two adult tickets.

How long should we spend at the museum with kids?

Around two hours following the family audio trail’s highlights. Expect 45–90 minutes of genuine engagement from a 6–8-year-old, longer if they’re already interested in Egypt. Plan a café break midway.

Is there a family audio guide, and is it free?

Yes. It’s free with admission, runs on your own phone via the museum wifi, lasts about 90 minutes, and is narrated for children around a treasure hunt for a cat called Miu. Available in Italian, English and French. Bring headphones.

Can I take a stroller into the Museo Egizio?

Yes. There are no architectural barriers and lifts reach all floors. Baby-changing facilities are available, though some have been affected by ongoing renovation work. Note that the cloakroom is currently suspended, so travel light — oversized bags and suitcases can’t be brought in or left behind.

Is there anywhere to take a break with an overstimulated child?

Yes — a sound-insulated quiet room on the second floor, created for anyone needing to decompress. Ask gallery staff for access. There’s also a café on the first floor and a planted courtyard.

Should I book a family guided tour?

Not necessarily. The free family audio trail is well made and covers most of what a family tour does. Book a guided tour if you want someone to pace the visit and answer questions, if you need a language other than Italian, English or French, or if you have several children. Check the tour’s language and minimum age first — many run in Italian only and set a minimum around 8.

Want a guide to do the pacing? Check live availability and current prices for family, small-group and private Museo Egizio tours at /#availability. Free cancellation up to 24 hours before, which matters more with children than without.