PlanetUM

Worth a detour

Twenty hands-on installations across three zones, plus a planetarium in a separate dome outside, in the port's public access area. It is aimed squarely at school-age children and it is the best indoor hour on this stretch of coast when the weather breaks. About €3.50 in winter and €4.50 in summer, with the planetarium charged separately. Closed Sunday and Monday, which catches people out.

Story

Background

PlanetUm is a science centre organised around three themes — innovation, energy and discovery — with twenty installations arranged so that engineering and the natural sciences become something to push, turn and set going rather than read about. The framing is navigators and explorers, which suits a port city. There is a children's corner and a STEM room as well.

The planetarium is a separate building: a spherical metal structure standing in front of the centre's entrance, with fifty seats set radially around an eight-metre projection dome. It is ticketed on its own — about €6 for an adult, €4 for pupils, students and pensioners, €2 for children under seven — while the science centre itself is about €3.50 from October to April and €4.50 from May to September, with combined family tickets for three or four people.

Both stand in the public access zone of Burgas port, beside Magazia 1 and the congress centre, a few minutes' walk from the passenger terminal. That location is useful: if the shower passes you can walk straight out onto the quay. The one thing to check before promising it to anyone is the day — closed Sunday and Monday, every week of the year. For older children the Natural History Museum in the centre and this make a reasonable wet-day pair, twenty minutes apart on foot.