The 19th century Hill palace is the biggest archaeological and heritage national museum in Kerala. Spread over a beautifully landscaped terraced land the place structure consists of 49 buildings built as per the traditional Kerala architecture. The complex has a children’s museum and park, pre-historic park, archaeological museum, heritage museum and a deer park and the surrounding area is abundant with rare species of medicinal plants. The archaeological museum displays rare murals, oil-paintings, manuscripts, sculptures in stone, inscriptions, coins belongings to the royal family and the throne. Hill palace museum is known for its vast collection of plaster cast models of objects dating back to Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa of the Indus Valley civilization. The most interesting section in Hill palace museum is the weapons and sculpture gallery where you can see old 10th to 18th century weapons and stone sculptures collected from various places. You can also see 14th to 16th century rare silver and bronze metal wares displayed here. The heritage museum here has a unique display of ancient utensils, artifacts and materials used for religious worship. A portion of the Hill palace ground has been converted into a botanical garden where you can find exotic species of tropical trees brought in from Australia and Central America. Hill palace also has a deer park in its premises. As part of recreation facility for the visitors the place offers horse riding facility and a gallery of contemporary art in the museum. Some of the other interesting things which can be seen are the gallery of chariots, wood carvings, oil portraits of the Maharajas, Numismatic gallery, gallery for Crown and Jewelry and Epigraphy gallery.