Archaeological Museum — Attraction in Veliko Tarnovo

Verdict: by a long mile, this is the worst museum we've visited in Bulgaria, with its rude and unhelpful (sometimes outright hostile) staff, poor exhibition planning and museography, lack of any narrative on the exhibits, and poorly maintained facility that's falling apart. There are way more idling staff than visitors, but the staff has not been helpful.

Details: on the outside, the yard looks tranquil and beautiful with sculptures, columns, and plants arranged around each other. On the inside, the air is full of dense dust that could choke you, as the carpet has not been vacuumed for years and air not circulated properly for months at least. The exhibition area is small and badly planned even by 1990s standards: 2 rooms on the ground floor, 2 rooms and a tiny cabinet room on the first floor, all lighted with a few fluorescent tube lights on the ceiling and in good weather, some natural light from the windows. Most items are cased behind high-glare glasses with little to no signage or explanation or story around the items. On the rare occasion there's context and narrative around the items, it's 2 short sentences entirely in Bulgarian. There's no sign in English or other languages at all throughout the building.

The staff there are also rude, unhelpful, and hostile to visitors. First, you can't just walk through a door and buy a ticket -- you have to ring a bell and wait for someone to come and let you in. Then, nobody there, including the ticket lady, speaks a word of English or any other language. Later, when we returned to an exhibition room we visited earlier, she followed us and tried to talk us into leaving the building because "there's nothing to see". She became visible frustrated when we politely but firmly told her that we wanted to take our time to make sure we don't miss anything, but eventually she left us alone. When we finally went for the door, she bolted from her desk to lock the door after us with a loud thud. And this is not counting other museum staff who did not even try to understand our question about the toilet's location, and just shrugged and disappeared into the "staff only" area never to be seen again. At least the ticket lady pointed out where the toilet is.

Protip: You need to ring a bell and wait for someone to open the door for you. You can pay for the ticket by card. The indoor air is very dusty and can choke you badly. Wearing a mask indoors is...

We really liked this museum. To gain entry you had to ring a doorbell after first passing through the stunning courtyard. The museum is old fashioned and in need to significant investment, it looks as though little has changed since communist times (including the rather impressive 1960s murals alongside the central stairway), the information panels are brief or outdated (we found Google Translate very helpful!), and some artefacts need urgent restoration. The coins in particular are fascinating, but I fear they are degrading rapidly in the not-ideal conditions and need professional treatment. However, leaving aside these comments, the museum has some fabulous items spanning prehistory, Thracian, Roman and medieval times. There are objects on display which would grace institutions such as the Louvre or British Museum, yet are here in this provincial museum in the small historic town of Veliko Tarnovo. Please pay a visit and provide this lovely institution with some much-needed...

Pros: very reach material well exposed in organized cabinets very nice building very nice court yard.

Cons: all the rooms were very dusty. It is very difficult to breath there. It is a urgent need of professional cleaning of the carpets even though some labels were translated in English, the main posters describing the periods, context, etc, are not. one of the ladies from the entrance was very polite, but other one has a very strange attitude: as soon as we went outside for a short (breathing) break, she closed and locked the door, even though our 12y son was still inside. After we returned in 5 mins, she asked us to buy tickets (she didn't noticed that we are the same persons and somebody...