As this blog is posted I will be in Poland on my annual European city trip. I’ll be in Krakow, primarily as a staging post to visit Auschwitz, spending a few days in the city before catching a train to Warsaw for more museum visiting and general touristing.
Warsaw Old Town (Image from Arian Swegers)
I will no doubt come back with lots of things to talk about including a general summary and a ‘best and worst’. But that will take time, so I thought I’d explain something about how I go about preparing to visit so many museums and perhaps more interestingly why I choose to not visit some. Even at my voracious pace I'm only going to be able to visit a fraction of all the possibilities.
Structured Fun
Picking where to go in particular is largely done on vibes, a large European city somewhere I've never been before. Ideally somewhere that isn’t too expensive to get to and stay. Though for an early January visit that is most of them. I’ve never been to Poland before, so why not there?
Then comes the ‘fun’ part. Using a mixture of google maps, trip advisor, atlas obscura and any other source I can find that is easily accessible I build up a list of all of the museums and other tourist attractions in a city. From here I add information about when it’s open, how much it costs, is it on any museum cards etc.
Section from my Tourism Spreadsheet
Once I’ve done all of this I then go through and rank all of the museums by how much I want to visit them on the following approximate scale based loosely on the original Michelin Star Scale:
5 - Worth a dedicated trip
4 - Worth a detour
3 - Worth it if I'm already nearby
2 - Maybe if it’s enroute to somewhere
1 - Probably not
0 - Not a chance
The 4 and 5 rankings are fairly obvious hitting on the big tourist attractions such as the Polin History Museum or perhaps those catering to my particular interests such as the Museum of Maria Sklodowsk-Curie or the slightly wacky and potentially interesting ones such as the Museum of Fantasy Art.
Decisions Decisions
The obvious first cut are museums that are very similar to one another. There are only so many art galleries, or churches that you can visit before they’re all pretty similar (despite how unique the brochure might claim it is). This is typically where looking for the ones that already bring in the tourists serves me best.
But perhaps the more interesting question is which are the museums with the low scores? Which of the 113 mapped museums, churches, and other places of interest do I not even consider really going to?
Of course, perhaps for exactly the reasons that I am not interested in those museums should be exactly why I should be visiting. However, this is ultimately a holiday. And I don’t care to spend my time or money visiting them (if you are a book or other kind of company willing to pay me to do visits then send me an email and I'd be happy to)
For Krakow/Warsaw there are few that get the low rating which I can bunch into broad categories:
Uninterested in Topic
(E.g. Legia Museum - Museum of Sport and Tourism)
There are very few topics that I genuinely just don’t care for. But sport is generally one of them, and especially football. I know it’s a bit of a cliché for the tubby nerd to dislike football but it’s a cross I bare willingly.
As such, unless a sports museum is of particular consequence I am very unlikely to visit it. Other examples I've struck off on previous trips include waxwork museums, some kinds of art museums, and a marvel super hero exhibition.
Not a Museum-Museum
(E.g. Arcade Museum - Be Happy Museum)
One day I will write about the rise of the ‘Museum’ that is not at its core a museum. Most notable among these are the ‘Instagram’ museums, most commonly some kind of illusion themed museum. There are not spaces that attempt to do any kind of educational work but rather are places for you to take cool pictures. This is not inherently bad by any means but they are not museums and thus I'm not interested here.
The other side of this are the video game arcades. They masquerade under a veneer of a museum-like archive but they are ultimately video game attractions. Again, this is not inherently bad, they’re great places and I love playing old games and they are important in the preservation cycle. But unless it’s something like the Musée Mécanique in San Francisco it’s not actually a museum.
Dull Vibes
(E.g. Museum of Literature - Earth Museum)
This is a harder category to fit and they are museums that perhaps under other circumstances I might be interested in visiting. But through a mixture of their website, images, and anything else I've come across online (including perhaps comparing it to other similar sites in the city) they just don’t pass the smell test and I feel that my time could be better spent elsewhere.
Mapping
I try to make my initial assessment entirely independently but whilst I'm putting things together I also build up a google map of all of the different places on my spreadsheet.
You can access my maps here for Berlin, Amsterdam, and Warsaw/Krakow.
This then offers something of a practical guide. I’m limited by the hours in a day and it’s much more efficient to be able to visit lots of museums that are near to each other (which helpfully they often are). So by building up a map I can also identify museums that are somewhat out of the way.
Screenshot of the Museum Map of Warsaw
Out of the way does not mean I won’t go, but it does mean that it has to be of significantly more interest as going to one museum an hour's bus or train ride out from the city centre has an opportunity cost and I might have gotten to visit upwards of 5 other museums. So it’s a balancing act.
This realistically then is what culls the majority of places. If it’s not particularly interesting in and of itself and it's not near anything that is, then in my limited time I probably just won't get round to it.
No really… I am spontaneous
I once told a story of the son of a neighbour who was going on a trip to New York and his then boyfriend had planned the whole thing out almost to the minute. Even going so far as to pre-order the drinks they were going to have at a bar on one of the evenings. Somebody then likened this to me and my maps and spreadsheets. I can see why, but I am mortally offended.
From this map and the spreadsheet I have a general direction and a partial plan for my trip. Perhaps on Monday I will do the South West portion from my hotel, on Tuesday the North East. I will only book for places that I absolutely have to and any of the highly rated things I want to see will form the cornerstone of a particular day's visit, including ensuring it will be open on that day.
But beyond that, it really is open. If I decide I want to spend several hours in one museum then that’s absolutely fine. Or if I get to an entrance and decide it looks rubbish I'm happy to leave. Maybe I’ll go on a little side hunt for a particular food, or maybe I'll be so keen to visit a string of museums that I forget about lunch completely.
My style is not one I would recommend to anyone, and I'm yet to come across anyone with the same stamina for museum visits as me. But it is a true and genuine passion, in these visits I add the museums to a list, not tick them off. I have a rough idea and some resources to support my visits, But I am spontaneous during my holidays… honest.
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