Things to do in Kamnik, Carinthia Region: The Best Museums

The Budnar’s house is a unique living museum depicting the lives of our ancestors. The renovated house, which was declared a historic monument, is owned by the municipality of Kamnik, and was named after its last owner, Cveto Budnar. The small partly stone partly wooden house leans against the hillside so that the gank (porch) with its southern side is always in the sunshine. The house represents a stretched home of a middle peasant in those days. At first, the house had only two rooms; a room called »hiša« (house) and a doorway with a smoke kitchen, later a small room called kamra was added, so that the living quarters and the farm are under the same roof. Today the house is a living museum which preserves a more than one hundred year old tradition of old farm houses and the simple peasant life.

Since 1961, the Kamnik Inter-Municipal Museum has been located in the castle. In Zaprice Castle there are permanent (a collection of furniture made of bent wood, an exhibition on history in the 19th century) and occasional exhibitions and lapidaries under the arcades at the entrance, where the stone remains of Roman tombstones are exhibited.

The Sadnikar Museum is the first private museum in Slovenia, founded in 1893 by the veterinarian from Kamnik, Josip Nikolaj Sadnikar. It contains over 1500 items. It is necessary to make an appointment before the tour.

The Miha Maleš Gallery is located on the floor of the Glavni trg 2 building. Miha Maleš was an academic painter from Kamnik who donated an extensive collection of works of art to the city on the occasion of its 750th anniversary. The gallery also houses a documentation and study center for art and culture from the first half of the 20th century.

Lectar House in the historic centre of medieval Kamnik is one of the oldest houses in town.The house hosts a museum workshop where honey-bread baking and candle-making handcrafts are presented, and where an exhibition on the development of candle making through the years is on display. You can also see the oldest preserved black kitchen in Kamnik.

On 9 October 1300, Seyfrid (Žiga) and Elizabeta Gallenberška (of Mekinje) established the first monastery of St. Clare in Carniola on their land in Mekinje. In addition to the premises at Mekinje, they also donated to the monastery their property, which included 13 farms, 4 cheese dairies, the right to supply timber, some meadows, orchards and streams.