Fukui with a toddler (2–3) 3 spots
Fukui is quiet coast and hills, and most of Japan's dinosaur bones come out of its ground. The museum at Katsuyama fills a dome with skeletons, and two of the species are named after the prefecture.
Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum
One of Japan's largest dinosaur museums: 51 skeletons displayed under a silver dome.
Stroller OK · Nursing room · Changing table · checked Aug ’26
Ichijodani Asakura Family Historic Ruins
A samurai warlord's castle town, 200 meters of it rebuilt on its excavated stone walls.
Stroller OK · checked Aug ’26
A museum of eyewear from the Edo period on, facing a shop of 3,000 frames.
Nursing room · checked Aug ’26
Several of the dinosaurs have a bronze model of the living animal beside them, and a child can put both hands on it and feel the shape. On the Tyrannosaurus, Mamenchisaurus and Probactrosaurus a sound plays at the head and another at the tail, so walking from one sound to the other gives a body-sized sense of how big the animal was. The Dino Lab on the second floor also has specimens you can touch.Eating and drinking are allowed only in the restaurant and the vending machine corner. If you bring a packed lunch, you eat it at the free rest area in the parking lot or at one of the park's facilities. The restaurant takes no reservations and gets very crowded on weekends and public holidays; once it is full, a screen is set out for you to add your name to the waiting list. The third floor has a kids' room where babies and toddlers can rest. The museum puts the permanent exhibition at about an hour to an hour and a half, but a family with a 1- and a 3-year-old (2026 visit) went in at 13:00, left at 16:00, still did not see everything, and never reached the outdoor Dino Park.
Step inside the samurai residences and the craftsmen's townhouses and you find the daily life of the time rebuilt from what the digs turned up. A digital stamp rally around the site, Mitsukete Yumemaru, is free, so there is something to collect while you walk.The ground across the site rolls up and down, so watch your footing. Some of the garden sites, Nanyoji Temple Garden among them, are up a flight of steps, so leave the stroller at the bottom. The official portal also carries a notice on preventing bear attacks, dated 21 November 2025.
The Megane Shop has over 3,000 current models from about 50 Fukui makers, and you can try them on - one family with an eight-year-old spent about an hour on the museum, trying frames in the shop, and the cafe. Photography is allowed in the Megane Museum, so you can take a picture in front of the pair you like.Touching the exhibits is forbidden, though photography is fine. Eating and drinking are allowed only in the lobby and the Museum Cafe, which is on the second floor up the stairs and closes at 16:00. Closing times differ across the building: the Megane Shop at 19:00, the workshop, the Megane Museum and Sabae Sweets at 17:00, the Museum Cafe at 16:00. Pets are not admitted.