MNHA Luxembourg, a whole country under the old fish market

If I had a single museum afternoon in Luxembourg City and wanted the whole country in one go, from its first settlers to 20th-century painting, this is where I’d spend it. MNHA, which now signs itself Nationalmusée um Fëschmaart, is a block of pale stone facing the old fish market in the heart of Luxembourg old town. From the street it looks like just another building. The interesting bit is underground.

A museum that dug itself in

The main building was finished in 1939 and was already too cramped by the 1990s. The extension, designed by the architect Christian Bauer and opened in 2002, had an awkward brief, because it sat in an old town protected by UNESCO. The answer was to go down. Three levels were cut into the rock beneath the Marché-aux-Poissons square, and that is where the archaeology lives. Exhibition space jumped from 1,900 to 4,300 m².

Around it sit the old Collart-de-Scherf house, a museum since 1922, and the Wiltheim wing, a cluster of noble and merchant houses restored between 2012 and 2014 that added some 1,500 m². That mix is what I like most here. On one visit you go from galleries hewn out of rock to houses whose old interiors the museum folds into its story of how people lived.

What’s on each floor?

Archaeology runs from prehistory through the Bronze and Iron Ages and the Gallo-Roman period to the Middle Ages, spread over five floors in a route that is part chronological, part thematic. Most pieces are local and regional finds, from the museum’s own digs or, since 2011, from the National Centre for Archaeological Research. It’s the section I would never skip. Among the Gallo-Roman pieces is the mosaic of the Muses found in 1995 at Vichten.

The coins and medals room reopened in December 2015 and traces Luxembourg’s money from antiquity to the euro, with hoards, dies and banknotes. Decorative and folk art, under the tag “from Mansfeld to design”, shows how people furnished their homes from a Renaissance court to today’s fitted kitchen. Fine art covers European painting, sculpture and photography from the 13th to the 21st century.

One honest warning. As of September 2026, the Edward Steichen room and the early art section are temporarily closed. If old masters were your reason to come, this isn’t your season.

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Tickets and how to get in free

A ticket costs €7, and the combined ticket with the Dräi Eechelen Museum, valid on the same day, is €12. Groups of six or more pay €5 a head. The free list is about as generous as European capitals get. Under-26s pay nothing, nor do visitors with reduced mobility plus a companion, Kulturpass and ICOM holders, or LuxembourgPass holders (the pass used to be called the Luxembourg Card). Nobody pays on Thursday evenings between 17:30 and closing at 20:00, nor in the final hour before closing on any day.

The sums are simple. If you’re 26 or over and you want both national museums, the combined ticket saves you €2 and the free tram links them. If you can make it on a Thursday evening, you don’t even need that.

Hours, bank holidays and the Nuit des Musées

From Tuesday to Sunday it’s open 10:00 till 18:00, with a Thursday late opening to 20:00. It’s closed on Mondays and on 1 January, 23 June, 1 November and 25 December. Other bank holidays it opens, unless they fall on a Monday.

On Saturday 10 October 2026 the museum stays open from 17:00 to 1:00 for the 25th Nuit des Musées. One wristband gets you into seven museums in the capital, with shuttles running between them. It’s €10 for adults and €3 for 16 to 26-year-olds in advance, €15 and €7 on the night, and free for under-16s. That night’s programme includes the retrospective of the Luxembourgish painter Berthe Brincour, which runs until 10 January 2027. When your dates line up, it’s the smartest way to see this and several other museums in Luxembourg in one go.

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Fitting it into a walk

The museum is a stone’s throw from the Bock, so the obvious pairing is the Bock Casemates followed by the walk down to the Grund. If you’re driving, the car parks the museum points to are Knuedler, Théâtre and Saint-Esprit. On foot, it’s a short stroll through the old town from Place Guillaume II.

So you do not lose the morning at the ticket office, browse tickets and tours in MNHA (National Museum) on GetYourGuide.

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Before you fix your dates, compare tickets to Luxembourg: the same journey can cost very different amounts from one day to the next.