What's There to See Here?!

At Vienna’s Music Museum (Haus der Musik), I got to virtually conduct the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s performance of a waltz. I had to almost shove aside a couple of eager 10-year-olds who wanted to skip the line and take their turns before me, but for three minutes I controlled the orchestra’s tempo, volume and instruments using an infrared baton and a responsive video. I recommend you give it a try -- arrive early to the museum and rush to the third floor so you can do it a few times before any one else shows up to wait in line.

Click here to watch me conduct the orchestra.

Chris and I have visited dozens of museums during our seven months of full-time travel. And we've found that many offer much more than a chance to browse through halls of specimens and exhibits and read information on placards. Hands on activities and interactive quizzes are fun and have been around for a while, but we’ve also seen amusement park type rides, virtual reality, holograms and physics demonstrations. If visitors are invited to participate in a re-enactment, we will probably volunteer. Want to try on a period costume? Yes, please! Need a volunteer to try out an exotic piece of equipment? Chris will raise his hand.

In York, UK, at the Jorvik Viking Centre, we rode an amusement park type carriage as we traveled around a replica of a viking village that stood in the area 1,600 years ago. We watched an animatronic butcher at work and got whiffs of smoke, fish and rotting rubbish as we traveled through the street.

At the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, I was fascinated by an interactive display that allowed me to see how the appearance of a painting changes based on the color of the wall it hangs on. That is the exact same painting in both pictures above, but the colors change dramatically when the wall color changes from white to yellow.

In Glasgow, Scotland, at the Riverside Transport Museum you can walk through a Victorian period street scene, with shops, vehicles and activities. That’s interesting, but not unique. What it had that I had never seen before was changes to the lighting, sound and activities to simulate the passing of a full 24 hours every 15 minutes.You could see the people and hear the traffic as it would be first thing in the morning and then evolve throughout the day and night.

It's getting dusk in the Victorian street scene at Glasgow's Riverside Museum. The gas streetlights are lit, the shops are closing and the atmosphere sounds change.

In London, the V&A East Storehouse is the actual warehouse for the Victoria and Albert Museum. Here you can glimpse behind the scenes of a working museum, explore how objects are collected and stored by museums and get an inkling of how they decide what to display and what to store. You can see curators moving items and researcers examing objets in temperature controlled rooms.

You get a new perspective when you see a wall of shelves holding multiples of the same type of object, like the chests and tables above at the V&A East Storehouse. How and why does a museum decide to display this particular 300 year old object with the brass hardware, instead of that 325 year old one that is more ornate and has gold trim?

At the V&A East Storehouse you feel like you might come across the Ark that was packed away in the Indiana Jones movie. Every single object has its own box or shelf built specifically to support its unique shape, weight and storage requirements.

Washington, D.C. has an endless supply of museums and monuments and most of them are free. We've hit all the major museums on our multiple trips to the Capitol, where our youngest daughter lives, and are on what we call the "third tier" sites now. We've sorted through stamps at the US Postal Museum, visited Woodrow Wilson's wine cellar and visited the attic of the boarded up apartment where Clara Barton's records to locate missing Civil War soldiers were discovered only 30 years ago. 

Chatting with Clara Barton in the actual building where her records related to searching for the final resting place of 22,000 Civil War soldiers had been abandoned and forgotten in an attic for more than 120 years.

At another "third tier" museum just outside Washington, D.C., you can test your ability to spot fake designer bags, Barbie dolls and beauty products at the Patent and Trademark Office's exhibit.

The visitor center at CERN, the physics research laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, is full of interactive exhibits. The concepts of much of the work there are so advanced, us mortals would not understand most of the theories and content without hands on activities. No visitors are allowed to view the actual 27-km long Hadron Collider used to study subatomic particles (the underground tunnel where it is located remains dangerously radioactive for weeks after each test), but one of the displays allows you to explore the collider with virtual reality headgear.

Chris is "examining" the interior workings of the Hadron Collider that smashes together tiny particles, like protons, at nearly the speed of light to test physicis theories and to ultimately explain the beginning of the universe. 

These types of exhibits are fun and engaging. So much so that we decided to forego our usual city center historical walking tour in Vienna recently and learn some of the city’s history through the immersive Time Travel Vienna exhibit/ride/entertainment. We were able to experience the sounds of World War II air raid, “meet” former Habsburg rulers and feel the wind blow as we traveled through the city from an areial view. 

 

Getting ready for a 4D experience that illustrates the history of Vienna. I'm smiling because I didn't yet know about that "rat tails" would be brushing my ankles during the description of the plague periods.

Can you see our resemblance Empress Elizabeth and Emperor Franz Joseph who ruled Austria in the second half of the 19th century?

Another way we like to learn about a location is through food or wine tours. Guides share history, but also very relevant information about how a city works today, how to order the local coffee specialty and what the tipping culture is. Plus, all the exhibits and displays are (usually) delicious! 

Tasting local meat, cheese and wine in Ljubjlana, Slovenia. 

More Examples of Engaging Exhibits and Sites We've Experienced

Stonehenge, England

At Stonehenge, the English Heritage organization added in some fun with a Taskmaster Challenge that allowed visitors to complete (and compete in) activities like those from the Taskmaster game show. Chris worked to build a Stonehenge replica that included a rubber duck. 

We completed enough of the Stonehenge Taskmaster challenges to consider ourselves champions!

 

Visiting a Working Historical Windmill in the Netherlands 

Chris joined up to help activate a windmill's blades at a historic site near Gorinchem, Netherlands.

What Are We Seeing?

We found ourselves transformed by the optical illusions at the Museum of Illusions in Maastrecht, Netherlands.

History at Work in Geneva, Switzerland

We observed a watchmaker at work at the Patek Phillipe Museum in Geneva, Switzerland.

 Knightwear is Heavy!

Chris tried on chain mail and a gauntlet glove at the Vienna City Museum.

Europa Experience, Vienna, Austria

Chris became part of an exhbit at the Europa Experience in Vienna, Austria when he took his picture and answered questions about his knowledge of the European Union.

Derry Girls Exhibit at the Tower Museum, Derry, Northern Ireland

I am sitting on the actual couch used on the set of the tv series Derry Girls! Many of the props and set pieces from the show are displayed at the Tower Museum in Derry, Northern Ireland, where the show was set.

Flanders Field Museum, Ypres, Belgium

At the Flanders Field Museum in Ypres, Belgium, you can pick a soldier who fought in one of the World War I battles in the area and learn about his background and fate during and after the war. 

Titanic Belfast, Northern Ireland

At the Titanic Belfast museum a loop of video plays that shows the exact moment the French-American expedition realized they had located the wreck of the Titanic in 1985.