Muzeum Inżynierii i Techniki — Attraction in Krakow

What a great gem - we went on a spur of the moment decision, as the weather wasn't great and we had no plan. This place is great for kids and adults alike. Really modern, really nicely laid out and thoroughly interesting.

The first section has lots of interactive elements which teach some fundamental concepts, e.g. SI units, how electricity works, etc. Great for kids from 10 and up. Younger ones will have fun things to play with but some of it is a bit too advanced. You can spend 30-45mins in there easily.

From there, it gets much heavier and more detailed, taking you through key periods of engineering (ancients, middle ages, industrial revolutions, computing/ information etc). Better suited for adults and those going down memory lane, e.g. old CRT TVs, mobile phones (Motorola bricks, flip phones, BlackBerry's etc). Still good fun for kids but not as much interaction for them.

Also, the gift shop was really reasonably priced and you weren't forced to visit it (unlike places in the UK, you don't have to go through the gift shop to get...

Wonderful experience. They have everything about city design starting from the way the ancient Romans built their roads all the way to today. You get to look at different streetcars from the 1900s.

They have some hands-on experiments so you're able to understand how to construct a brick wall with different styles, how different electrical units work, etc...

Something that particularly impressed me: they have a lot of people standing around and watching you. (I guess to keep little kids from touching the exhibits that you're not supposed to touch.) However, when I was about to go to a different museum section, one of the "guards" stopped me and told me that I had missed a section that I might want to take a look at before I continue. What I want to say is this, they really pay attention and want to make sure that you have a great experience there.

Even better: visiting this place on a Tuesday, you don't even have to...

Only bit of the museum currently open is the tram hall. Fortunately it was the trams I wanted to see. Unfortunately they had some sort of ghost tram theme happening and the hall was dark and bathed in a dim blue light making it hard to see the actual trams, which appeared to be very well kept.

I can sort of see why this was done, to make it more interesting to 'normal' visitors, but as a tram museum volunteer in another country, I wanted to see tram tech, not an art installation.

None of my photos will reflect the true colours of the trams due to the unusual colour of the lighting.

Tram history is an evolving thing, the hall for the trams is exactly the size needed to keep the current historic fleet. What happens when the next generation of tram passes into history ?. Where will they be...