The best museums Idrija

In 1997, the museum was awarded the prize for Best European Technical and Industrial Museum. The castle was built in 1523. A fortress against Ottoman aggression, it became the headquarters of the mining administration until 1940. Its remarkable arcaded courtyard now hosts cultural evenings. Unequal quality of the permanent exhibition. The first part, located on the first floor, highlights extracts of local rocks and gems without providing any explanation in a language other than Slovenian. As you continue your itinerary through the museum, you fall in admiration for an impressive mineralogical and petrographic collection that also lacks context. The second part of the exhibition offers an intelligible and concise contextualization, in English, of the exploitation of mercury in the region through its discoverers, the working conditions it requires, its key personalities and its inexorable decline. This transition makes it possible to introduce a last floor of exhibition very rich in information about the 20th century in Idrija: the occupations it has undergone, the particular role of the supporters, the essential place of Idrija lace in the local heritage. The last rooms, where we must praise the effort of interactivity, allow us to get a more precise and global idea of the interest of mercury in our daily lives. As you will have understood, the visit is essential to better understand the specificity of Idrija.