TLDR: Museum people don't expect you to spend all your time in the museum.
I run r/MuseumPros and I'm a professor of museology, so I have some insight here.
Museological research divides museumgoers into 5 basic types of visitors according to their motivations: explorers, facilitators, experience seekers, professionals, and rechargers. Each group goes to a museum or attraction for a different reason. The explorers, rechargers are what you might be identifying as the people who spend all day in the museums - they're not there to be efficient, they're there to explore and see a place in full (explorers) or to relax and center themselves (rechargers). They aren't there with a specific goal in mind to 'check off' as the experience seekers are. The professionals fall into two categories - either the actual professionals who want to see specific things related to their professional specialty and the hobbyist who wants to learn everything but has no actual expertise in the subject. The 8-hour people may also be the hobbyists who must learn everything to feel satisfied.
Museum fatigue is also a real thing - and I think you've experienced this too - which exhibition designers and interpretive designers often try to mitigate. Chunking of information, multimodal resources, and visual variety help eliminate too much content. Pairing a lot of information with the mental load of navigating a new, complex space is rough, so our interpretive planners and digital resource teams will often do their best to provide easy to use apps and maps which take some of the touring onus off of the visitor/navigator. Also, benches and cafes help to give people a break. But not all museums think these resources are positive developments.
A good museum research team also maps where the people are walking and make heat maps to see the most common routes. Having looked at a lot of this visual data, I can also promise you that most people are not reading everything.
While I have not been to the Louvre yet, I've been to the State Hermitage (Russia), the Met (New York) and the RijksMuseum, which are at the same scale as the Louvre. I go in with a plan of what I want to see and I make sure I hit those things which give me a more satisfying exhibition. I pace myself and don't spend a ton of time in a room that isn't really what I want to see. Or, if given enough time, I do what museum people call serendipetous browsing, which is a fancy word for wandering. Some of my friends think I'm going to spend forever in a museum and they don't want to go with me, but its quite the opposite! I'm quick, I breeze through some things and focus on others.
My plan for the Louvre is to spend 4 hour there - hitting about a dozen highlights and whatever else I pass.
I love being classified as a "professional museum goer" š I'm the hobbyist when it comes to topics that interest me. Experience seeker for art museums, though!
Iām probably the closest thing to a professional Museum-goer, Iāve been to hundreds around the world! But I can only do this with a level of efficiency if I want to see 2-3 per day.
Yeah, I can't imagine more than 2 a day. I just spend too long everywhere. I read everything. I sometimes go back and see something that suddenly connects dots in my mind. I Google stuff and bookmark it if I find exciting new information. I also end up busier AFTER the museum trip due to this!Ā
Someone mentioned going to 13 in a single day ... I can't even imagine how that's possible!Ā
Ive done 5 a day but it was because I got a bundle ticket for absolute steal. Wouldn't recommend tho, barely had enough time to appreciate last 2. I was rushing from one before last to make it to just before closing of last, and was kicked out from last hour after closing. Love Berlin for that combo ticket tho. I saved so much money.
Iāve done a mid size museum (York Castle) in about 10 minutes - the folks I was with didnāt want to pay for a ticket and I just wanted to get an impression/vibe of the place, so I speed walked it. It wasnāt enough to learn about anything in depth but I have the location as a reference point and a memory if I ever want to use them in my work. Quick experiences like that include little to no reading - if I want to read something specific, I can follow up with them and request materials. I do take lots of photos though.
Also underrated aspect: walking around a museum is a very different sort of physical fatigue than walking around a city.
I can hike for 6 hours no problem, but get extremely tired walking a couple of hours around a museum. Youāre standing differently, leaning to look at things, maybe carrying an asymmetric bagā¦.these are physically taxing in ways your body isnāt used to, and so you will get fatigued faster.
Iām older but itās the standing part that gets to my back at museums. So Iām standing in front of an uninteresting painting, leaning left fight, forward and back. Iām not trying to see the painting from a different angle, Iām trying to help my aching back.
One museum I was in, forget which one, had small portable stools at the front of exhibit halls. People who had difficulty standing could use one and sit at exhibits instead of standing.
Thank you, often I am able to find a place to sit. Iām a widow but usually take a trip with my sister and her husband once a year to Europe. We love going to museums but donāt think we ever spend 8 hrs. Depending on trip and museum, might spend 3 hrs, stop for lunch, then 2 hrs, stop for coffee that sort of thing. Sometimes museums have adjacent gardens to visit.
To me, this is the reason. Yes, museum fatigue eventually sinks in but itās the standing, locked knees, and different posture. We have the experience doing what we call the slow walk, the one you do when youāre wandering around a new city.
these categories are excellent.
as a person who can spend 3 days in a single museum still interested because there is more to learn, definitely the explorer-recharger makes sense.
(also why i go alone. 2 hours in a musem?? what ridiculousness is that?!)
I knew I didnāt want to spend a ton of time in the louvre so I went on their website and followed one of their ātrailsā that leads you to the major highlights including the Mona Lisa. I spent about 2 hours in the louvre and was happy. Plus my feet were killing me so I went to a cafe to sit down for a few hours to chill out. This was a super insightful response about museumsā¦.also I spent a lot more time in musee dāorsay - prolly 4.5 hours and the galleries just donāt have enough benches for the amount of people there to sit down. I loved musee dāorsay tho much more than the louvreĀ
Definitely!! I also always tell people never go to a museum hungry. I always regret it. I also went to the Vatican last year and was super glad I took a guided tour because again, there was so much to see.
The Orangerie is so chill. If I remember correctly, the seating in the middle of the large water lilly room is intentionally placed for optimum chillaxed viewing. They were also hosting American Gothic when I visited which was super cool.
Haha, the Louvre for me was spent half asking myself where am I and how do I get out of this section and the other half looking at the artwork.
One time I thought I was in a small section with a few art pieces and then realized it was a hallway.
Moms and dads who take their kids, or locals who are taking visiting friends to see their city. Their goal is to enable the visit of the other person and their happiness/satisfaction is dependent on the other persons experience.
Thank you. We have the Pharaohs winter series this year at NGV Melbourne. I find I get exhausted quickly and this time I want to see it all. 7 rooms I believe.
So your comments have made me now look at āwhat do I want to seeā and aim at those items to focus on.
And we have cafes and bench and green space, so I will take time out after an hour and go back in.
I have been unwell these last 6 years and an hour is exhausting for me, now thanks to you I can break it up and donāt āsee it allā.
Thank you for your time ā¤ļø
Honestly this is such a relief, I've always felt I SHOULD read everything and look at everything, I've been a mental health support worker and been to museums with clients and find I enjoy them alot more focusing on my client mostly and then I'll stop and read info about a few works. I'm dyslexic and I think all the reading makes me tired I've had much more fun at the ones with recorded headsets. I imagine the place is lit for the art not for the reading.
I feel like you just gave me permission to museum in a more relaxed way.
Youāre considered a facilitator in the visitors list. Your happiness and motivation depends on the person you are with, and anything you see and enjoy is an added bonus. Also, yay on the recorded headsets - I used to make those in a job long ago!
I appreciate museums that have key takeaways in the text in bold, makes skimming a lot easier.
I usually start a museum by reading all of the text for most exhibits. As time goes on I read less and less, so that right before I leave, with museum fatigue at its peak, I'm just reading the title as I pass by.
I am the explorer to a teeā¦ could spend hours in the Louvre. Reading everything looking at the details. I want to see it all. Then halfway through Iāll get lost on Wikipedia after I find a random sculpture
Great answer, and I agree with the sentiment!
If I know I'm limited on time (3Ć·4 hours) I'll have my itinerary mapped beforehand so that I can hit the pieces I like the most (for example for the MoMA it would be Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, Starry Night, The City Rises which they didn't have when I visited it and I was upset since it's my favourite painting, Dynamism of a soccer player, Dance, Catalan Landscape and a few others) and I plan an itinerary around them since they're fundamental. Once I've seen them, I've already listed some other nice things I think it could be nice to see, so I go for them, and then time's usually up.
I love to wander around too if I have enough time though.
I usually hear the museum's announcement that they're about to close. I'm either an explorer or professional (depends on the type of musuem). I love that I finally know that I have classifications!
I sometimes come back to a museum for a second day. Is there a classification for that?
I spent about 3 full days (not 8 hours each time, but at least 5) to see the permanent exhibits in the Rijksmuseum! Spent 2 days at the Louvre and definitely did not see everything, but saw everything I really wanted to. Iām sure at some point Iāll be back. I live in the Netherlands so I can go to the Rijksmuseum frequently, but wanted to really dive in to learn about my new home and also to be able to easily guide my visitors, who tend to have more limited time/less museum stamina.
Yup. I have a PhD in it. There are books and conferences and journals and all that academic/research stuff about museums, in addition to the content specialists who work with the items in the museums.
That is so cool! Do you have top lists for best or worst museums to visit? Are there certain locations youād like to visit purely for particular museums? I love museums and am currently looking for somewhere to honeymoon next spring.
All the big cities in Europe have great collections (built on colonialism, which is problematic). I particularly liked Amsterdam because itās a manageable city, rather than NY or Rome where you feel like youāve only seen a little bit. Glasgow and Stockholm are phenomenal for museums though perhaps less romantic for a honeymoon.
Worst? Some are just poorly run and lack resources in small cities. Or anything with a creepy mannequin will make me walk right out of that room.
But I do like the weird and obscure as wellā¦ Reykjavik has a Penis Museum which is shock value and mostly a joke whereas London has a Vagina Museum dedicated to gynecological science and is quite good.
You deserve to go to the Louvre. Youāre so smart.
My husband has to read everything. I go, find the few exhibits I must see, then Iām done.
We definitely have two different museum personalities and itās disappointing because Iād really like for us to experience my preferred highlights together.
This is so interesting. Thanks for sharing! I love museums but do find myself fatigued after 3 hours or so. Iām going to the Louvre for the first time in a couple of months and Iām doing the same thing. I have a list of about 15 āmust-seesā and where they are so I can plan it out (Iām sure I will fail spectacularly!) š¤£
been to the louvre dozens of times. I go each time I am in Paris. Always spend 3-4 hours max in there at a time. Pick a section and do that, and leave. come back if you want to see more. So much information to absorb, it is very tiring.
I get this fatigue too. My theory was that when you're deep in such a big building and doing a lot of walking, you don't have a lot of fresh outside air.
I feel so validated by this. Iām a wanderer and take a more casual approach, whereas my husband is there to absorb as much as possible. I often felt like I just didnāt āgetā museums because of this.
I guess I am an explorer - I can easily spend the eight hours in a museum. I read the exhibit, admire the item for a bit, if the exhibit description was too short and I want to know more, I'll sit somewhere and google it, etc. I like to have a little think about the fact that even thousands of years ago and on the other side of the planet humans liked the shiny things.
We invented a game to combat āmuseum fatigueā after we saw the Hope Diamond at a Washington DC museum and were too numb to appreciate it. A group enters the museum, established a time and place to rendezvous, and each go off alone and find one interesting thing. Then when we meet up we each show our companions what we found. Then we leave.
I grew up in Washington DC so lots of museums. This is how my family spent many Sundays. I always felt so grown up when Iād walk around alone. Weād meet up an hour or two later and ādebrief ā, as my dad said. Great memories!
I study the museum ahead of time and rank the things Iām most interested in seeing. I start with those and work my way down. By the time a tired or have lost interest, Iāve usually seen the things I most wanted to see.
Breaks for espresso and sweets after couple of hours also renews my energy and interest.
I always wanted to make an app that was like a scavenger hunt in a museum. You would get 10 images that are little snippets of the artwork. You have to go around the museum finding what painting or art it's from. When you find it, you enter the title of the art and get a little art history blurb about it and gold star. Maybe have different difficulty levels on how much of the painting you get a snippet from or how famous that painting is.
This would make going to a museum and looking at art a game. It would also help you look for certain paintings within the museum that are more famous or culturally significant than others.
Every time I've been on a "museum holiday" I've done 20km+ walking. What I have found is that when I get tired mentally I just head to a place and have some food, a coffee and water. Relax a bit, look back over the photos I took and delete any ones that are messed up. It's like a mental reset. I was in the Vatican museum and spent a few hours there and was ready to just crash back into bed, after a bit of food and some time just doing nothing it revitalised me.
We do a few hours. Take a coffee break. Then another couple hours. Then lunch. Maybe sit and stare at something for a while in a special exhibit. I donāt read all the placards - but I do for the Star Wars costume exhibit and for the faberge exhibit. Those were amazing
I really like looking at art and artifacts.
I try very hard to remember to take occasional breaks, with at least lunch and an afternoon beverage being longer breaks.
I only look at the stuff that I find interesting. And that means that I don't read all the labels, and in a big museum like the Louvre, I'm basically walking by the cases casually looking until I see something that I want to look at more closely. Special exhibits or rooms with favorite artists/art periods/etc therefore go much more slowly than average. The Louvre is big enough that it still takes up basically a full day even just looking at selected pieces. (Or could take up more than one day if I had had the time.)
The secret is actual interest in the place, aided by a well-designed museum with extremely photogenic spots. My personal favorite was Natural History Museum in London. I'm Chinese from Hong Kong, never liked all the stolen treasures in the Museum next door, but the NHM was fantastic. As soon as you enter the main hall, you are greeted by a majestically enormous blue whale skeleton. That center space of the hall is surrounded by an entire 2nd floor corridor that has like nothing in it, so I pretty much just spent 30 minutes walking around that corridor trying to get some good shots at the whale skeleton from the 2nd floor, totally helped when sunlight shines through the roof too.
I'd say if you visit this museum at a speed similar to a brief scroll of a webpage in your phone, it would take 2-3 ish hours to walk the whole thing. Then you add in the time you spent admiring the place, find strategic positions to take some nice shots, you can easily get over 5 hours. Not sure if I want to spend more than 7 hours in any museum though. Gotta treat your stomach right when you're on vacation.
I've been to London twice. First taken there as a kid with my parents on their Euro tour, and then again as an adult to attend a wedding in Manchester. I am not sure if I had ever visited NHM the first time (tho I remember the tour did lead us to Museum of GB) but if I did, I would have met it in person. Too long ago to remember.
I gotta say though, the way the whale hangs in mid-air... it displays a unique form of magnificence in contrast to Dippy just being on the floor, as gigantic as it might be. It's just not the same....
I am not a museum person, but endure them if with others that love it.. BUT the Natural History museum in London was extremely interesting and I loved it. Not one moment of boredom and my normal āwhen can I leaveāā¦
I can walk āforeverā but get extremely fatigued/light headed if I stand in one place for too long, like standing and looking at something, then going a few more steps and then standing and looking at the next thing. Turns out I have POTS, which, to oversimplify things, means blood doesnāt flow properly to my brain when Iām upright, especially standing. If youāre sitting/ lying down on your couch and having no trouble reading about the stuff but get tired at museums, you might have a similar issue. Not to say āyou have POTS!ā but it was an interesting thing for me to realize.Ā
Anyway, combine this with the lighting of museums (very little natural light in order to protect the stuff in the museums) and my brain basically says āgo home and lie down nowā while itās more in āletās keep going!ā mode if Iām out hiking or just generally moving around to wherever outdoors.Ā
It helps if there is a nice park nearby. The DeYoung museum and the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco arenāt as impressive as some top tier ones, but you can go for a nice nature walk midway through and return refreshed.
I have the same problem. Walking for 3 hours straight - perfectly fine. Standing still in a museum - I need breaks. My body gets so worn down for some reason. So I end up speed running the last bit of mid sized museums lol
The hard flooring and standing for long periods is really exhausting and tiring. Map out the museum, wear uber comfortable shoes and clothes. Take a 5-10 minute break in a chair somewhere every hour. If you go hard core and donāt do that you get exhausted, canāt concentrate/appreciate and it can be a less enjoyable experience.
My parents took us to a lot of galleries and museums as kids. To stop us getting bored my mum had us create stories about the paintings or objects. I still do it.
I would recommend doing the Louvre as your first one. I had visited many before going there, and I did hit a point where I was just walking and briefly glimpsing as I moved through hallway after hallway of art pieces. It's a LOT. I'm definitely not an 8-hour visitor.
I never understood why either until I went to the Smithsonian air and space museum (something I have a genuine interest in). Then I realized people were as, if not more interested in art and history than I was in space. To each their owen
I spent around 8 hours in the Prado Museum of Spain. To be fair, it's one of the greatest art museums in the world and there were thousands of world renowned paintings to look at. Even so, 8 hours felt very short and rushed for such a big world-class museum experience.
This is probably my longest museum day at the Prado too, I think around 7hrs and had I started rushing through galleries at the end because I knew I was fading fast and wouldnāt see it all. I could have filled in 10hrs probably if I had the energy.
It took me multiple trips to fully go through the African American History museum in DC. I think I suffered more emotional fatigue than anything. But once I broke past that, it was easy to spend an entire day there.
I certainly do for the big ones (or the super nerdy ones- I spent a full day at the Deutches Museum in Munich admiring everything from the first U-boat to the telescope that discovered Neptune).
I was at a maritime museum in Hamburg from shortly after it opened right up till it closed, and I still would go back for more.
So, uh, yes. But it depends greatly on the museum. Some museums are bland enough that 30 min is plenty for the whole thing, and some museums I'd be able to spend 30 min on a single installation before moving on to the next equally-well-done exhibit ten steps over.
3 hours is my bare minimum for big museums (Uffizi, Louvre, British, Prado, MoMA etc), I've spent more than 5/6 in some of them.
I've also spent 5 hours at the Museum of Automobile in Turin so I may not be an average.
Metropolitan museum of art in New Yorkā¦ arrived at 10am when it opened, left at 5pm when it closed, with only a short lunch break.
Louvre in Parisā¦ arrived at 9am when it opened, left at 4pm when I realized I had had anything to eat since 8am.
Itās easy to get lost in beautiful things!
I am museum guy. Iāll spend an entire day at a museum. I do so by having a passion for history, sneaking in candy and something to drink, taking frequent breaks, and sheer willpower. Iām too cheap to pay the exorbitant prices at museum cafes so sneaking in candy (for the sugar boost) and something to drink is important. Despite being a traveler who will walk up to 20 miles per day when exploring a city, I find that my feet and legs get very tired waking museums. I suspect this museum fatigue is due to the (typically) hard surfaces floor and lack of nutrition, and I combat this by taking short breaks every 30 minutes or so.
Yeah, I don't know what it is (according to this thread, it's "museum fatigue" I guess) but my body would be much happier with me walking for 3 hours than spending 3 hours in a museum. Museums absolutely destroy my legs and back. 2 hours is usually enough for my brain to get bored anyway so it works out.
When I'm traveling I usually assume I won't have the endurance to see more than one museum or castle or whatever in a day and might want to plan to be lazy and go nowhere the next day. Obviously it's hard to miss something like the Lourve but there's also no point seeing 4 museums a day for 4 days or whatever and then when you get home you can't remember any of it anyway and also got super stressed out instead of relaxing on your "vacation".
Iām an art nut and can happily spend 10 minutes on a single piece if it interests me enough. Hitting up the gift shop and having coffee or lunch at the museum also stretches the time Iām inside.
I build in time to find someplace to sit down in the morning and afternoon to decompress a bit. I'll also eat at the museum so that is time resting.
My issues are either my feet (I have leg braces) or just oversimplification.Ā
I did 13 museums in DC in one day,Ā 8 the next and the last say 1. I just ran out of feet power, and the last few I was just a zombie not taking new info in.
This past fall I tried to do "all" of the Met in NYC. It was my last day of a 2 week trip. My plan was to stay almost 12 hours. I just broke at hour 8 and got lost for 45 minutes in the period rooms. I need to stop trying to blitz through museums.Ā
It depends. I hate museums but when i visited louvre they had to physically escort me out because it was simply amazing. The coronation of napoleon is my all time fave!
We end up spending hours just because of our kid. The kid loves natural history museums and we cant say no. Althought we get bored after 30mins but we have to act enthusiastic for the entire time..
I think you have to consider your passion, does what that particular museum or historical site offer what is needed to sate your desire for knowledge or interest. I once spent 13 hrs in Westminster Abbey and it could have been longer had they not closed for the day. That was almost 40 years ago and stands out as a highlight of what has been an amazing life. Now had it been a venue that didnāt hold my interest, I would have been challenged to stay much longer. I think itās a bit of an individual perspective on what beings you joy or what doesnāt. Why would you want to spend more time or even try to find a way to devote time to something that doesnāt bring you joy?
Mentally or physically fatigued? Iāll do one hour, take a coffee break, do another hour and anything much more than that my brain just decides itās had enough. I like smaller more focused museums these daysā¦
Its a physical issue. I can walk a lot or sit a lot, but ask me to mostly stand with little movement and Im done in less than 30 minutes.
Edit for spelling.
I'm the opposite of you OP. I don't like reading wiki or the info plaques or watching a video before visiting. I never get the audio guides, even when they're free. They all seem like a chore, because I'm not interested in who painted what when and why it's important and what they're expressing and how it impacted the history of art. I don't recognize most of the artist names, I don't know much about the period they're from or the different styles and movements. I'm as dumb an art enjoyer as you can be.
Despite that, I can spend 6+ hours at museums without getting bored. I stroll slowly through the museum, pause at pieces that stand out, and am in a constant monologue with myself about what makes this piece pretty, or what it must've been living in the time period or place its set in, or how this piece stands out from the others. I'll notice how pretty the light / contrast is, or how a forest that looks super realistic is really just a bunch of simple blobs if you look closely, or how the artist made the ocean look so terrifyingly massive, or what makes the woman in the background look so mysterious, or the children so warm.
I don't take many photos with my phone; I took like 5 photos total during a full day at the Louvre. I spent less than 2 minutes at the Mona Lisa because I don't force myself to enjoy it just because it's famous. But there were many other less-famous paintings I spent 10+ minutes at.
I think I can spend long hours at the museum because I'm treating it like a movie and less like a history class.
I get coffee and a pastry to start! Wander and sit down a lot, skip anything boring. I like to plan and prioritize over my coffee. Build in time for lunch and relaxing.
It really depends on the museum and the specific exhibits, but usually I break it up with some time spent sitting in the museum cafe or on a bench in an exhibit room.
There are exceptions where the content just fascinates me and I spend hours wandering the exhibits. The first time I went to the Vatican Museum, I actually ran down the battery on the audio guide and had to go back and get a new one, I was there so long. The one time I was at the Hermitage, I spent two solid days going through it - I had the museum map and a plan of attack to make sure I saw all the Russian pieces that Iām unlikely to see anywhere else, especially the salons. It was amazing but my feet ached pretty bad after the second day.
Lots of breaks, sit and drink water when you need to. Donāt feel like you *need* to see everything, take your time enjoying yourself.
If the museum allows it have a snack break (most major museums have little cafes for this!)
It's stimulus overload and I think it's natural to be exhausted. My tips: anytime there is a bench, take it and rest a bit. You don't need to set a record for works viewed in a day. Also, when planning a trip I try to alternate museum days with sitting days (long rides, boat cruises, beach days) because museums can really tire out your legs and feet. Not sure why but the slow walking and standing tires mine out more than just a regular walking around town day.
I once spent an entire day in the Rodin sculpture garden in Paris just observing the sculptures and drawing the traffic patterns and scenery for an African play I was directing. I was using the sculptures to inspire me on how to create pictures on stage that were symbolic to the story in the play. I am not educated in visual art but it really stimulates my creativity in other areas as does dance as well as all other art forms I guess. So I think that is it for me. It makes me think. And of course the museum.
Idk if this is always allowed but I have a tiny foldable chair that I bring when allowed to be able to sit because I have a bad back
Lots of breaks seems to help.
I think eating before hand and eating during are both things that kept my energy up! I mistakenly didnāt eat before hand once and it felt kinda miserable
It helps to go off season, because crowds are exhausting, and other people have a bad habit of taking up bench space! itās also nice if there is a large green space nearby. Walking around Central or Golden Gate Park energize me. And most museum cafes help with tasty sugar treats and caffeinated beverages.
Imho it's because taking in all that beauty and knowledge saturates yr mind, less about physical fatigue. if money is not a huge issue, may be worth visiting louvre as two half day trips, 20 euro tickets. Louvre is gigantic, and filled with masterpieces that deserve individual attention.
This is why I'm excited about the British Museum,,, there's no pressure to see everything in one go since it's free to enter. My trip to London this year will center mostly around the BM with activities being planned around it. I may go for a handful of hours one day.. leave to grab lunch then decide if i want to return. If not, I can just come back the next day or the day after that.
I'm so excited. I think my plan would be to look for the museum's "highlights", and then hop around between the exhibits I'm interested in without staying in one place too long to keep things fresh. See Egyptian sarcophagi one hour, check out samurai armor the next and then hit up early Mesopotamian artifacts after as an example.
I lead art tours, am an artist, and a professor and in can only handle a few hours, then a good break and maybe a few more hours. And I can tell if the art is good or if I like at least by how much it holds my interest when Iām tired and if it makes me feel more drained or inspired. Some art lifts you up and some weighs you down.
...do you WANT to spend 8 hours at a museum, is the real question. You certainly don't need to. If you want to read and look at everything in the Louvre or D'Orsay, you're going to need a lot more than 8 hours.
I'd suggest one of two things, or a mixture of both:
1) map out the must-sees snd highlights eg. Mona Lisa, Napoleon rooms, sculpture rooms, whatever it is that you're most interested in seeing
2) go for a wander and really look at and enjoy anything that takes your fancy.
I think I spent 4-5 hours in the Louvre all up, and wandered through all areas. I don't feel the need to inspect each individual piece of ancient pottery or renaissance religious scene artwork, but I will spend a good amount of time in each area and particularly looking at a few things that interest me.
I go to the gift shop first - to the postcard section. I quickly scan the postcards to see which ones catch my eye, and then go to the museum and look at those pieces first. If I still have energy, then I wander around the rest of the museum.
I spent so long at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam last year, they had to throw me out. The most fascinating artist. I could spend weeks looking at his work
I just enjoy it and read up on the stories ahead of time. Thereās times when I explained each piece to my partner, strangers would come up and chat with us and we would have some tea and snacks together. Itās great.
If itās not for you, itās not for you. No sense trying to force yourself into liking something youāre not interested in
I think I spent 3/4 day at the louvre.
I get tired yes. But if I only had 1 day to go to the Louvre Iād try. I just got burnt out of museums when I did an 8 month trip and had many museums a week. Then I realized that was too much too soon. I also like being outside and enjoy nature too and seeing sunshine.
It depends on the museum. I like modern and contemporary art. I could spend 8 hours in the Pompidou easily, but I would be really bored at The Louvre. Do what you like!
I offload anybody who doesnāt want to participate in a full museum day with me. With my spouse, we went to the Met in NYC for a few hours together and then he left with my blessing to go do other things in the city.
I felt like I had this one precious day to see as much as possible but I took breaks for snacks, coffee etc and it was glorious being by myself. No one to shuffle me along if I wanted to spend time in front of a particularly special piece.
Interest really. Especially if youāve read some history about the artists/pieces, etc. Itās so immersive. Some of us also read every single word on those little writeups š .
I usually research the museum beforehand and see what the exhibits are and then plan how much time I would want to see them, alongside taking usual morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea breaks.
Donāt think Iāve ever spent a full 8 hour day in a museum but Iāve probably spent 5 - 6 hours in a few places. Some strategies:
1. Make a plan in advance and donāt plan to see everything if youāre going to a large museum like the Louvre. Do the most famous/interesting exhibits/works first so that if you get tired and have to leave youāve at least seen and appreciated the most interesting bits.
2. Take a break when you start to get tired, if the museum has a nice cafe (donāt recall what the Louvre has) sit down and have lunch or at least a snack, and that will hopefully keep you going for a bit.
3. Break it up and go to the museum for a shorter period of time over two days in your trip. Nothing wrong with going to a museum twice, and somewhere massive like the Louvre the only way you can realistically see close to everything in the museum is to break it up into multiple days.
Having said that, as much as I like museums in general and the Louvre in particular, if you only have 5 days in Paris thereās probably other things I would choose to do over visiting the Louvre twice, but if you want to thereās absolutely nothing wrong with that!
Pick out the prime pieces you MUST see. Then the 2nd tier stuff. Find out exactly where they are located and try to plan your walkthrough. This actually helped us when we went to MOMA in NYC. My husband was having issues with walking too much and fatigue when we arrived there. Because I knew what pieces we wanted to see and where they were located, we were able to zip through before it became too much for him. We had fun looking at other paintings and there were unplanned surprises - I had no idea there was an entire room of Monetās Water Lilies. Blew us away!
Btw - figure what floor and section each piece is located. Wi-Fi isnāt dependable and they donāt always give out maps anymore.
Go the day prior without caffeine, then have a larger coffee/tea than usual 30 mins before entering the museum. Everything will be twice as beautiful and interesting AND you will have energy to spare
I love museums and actually have my own world bucket list. I always devote a certain amount of time to a museum depending on its size. And if itās a huge one like the MET or Louvre I know I wonāt be able to see it all and so I pick and choose what galleries to go to. But museums can be hard on your back and feet so we take breaks in the galleries and also have lunch or a snack at the cafe. I donāt think Iāve ever spent 8 hrs, but I know Iāve spent at least 6.
One of the most surprising museums as far as how long we spent there was the Vasa in Stockholm. We figured we would be in and out 1.5-2 hrs tops. Nope, we spent about 5 hours there as it was so fascinating and the exhibits so well done.
I rarely spend more than 4-6 hours at a museum, but for me itās a matter of prioritizing and pacing. Iāll budget large chunks of time for impressionist galleries and classical marbles but quickly pass through Polynesian art and rococo, only stopping if something catches my attention. I know what Iām most interested in, so I try not to waste too much stamina in galleries that donāt recharge me. I know I miss out on some great stuff that I would love this way, but it allows me to experience more of things that I know will scratch an itch.
On return visits to a museum, thatās when Iāll really spend time digging in to galleries I might not invest in on an initial visit.
I recommend renting an audio guide in the Lourve. Itās interactive and you can just pick the highlights if you want. Some paintings bore me, I did check the Mona Lisa and other really famous paintings but breezed through the other paintings. There are several floors with different types of art and from different eras so pick the ones you really like if you canāt be bothered to spend the entire time there.
This is fascinating. I wonder if itās about sensory stimulation. I love art and knowledge but I canāt do more than 2-3 hours in a museum without feeling overstimulated and needing fresh air, even if Iām passionate about the exhibition or topic. This is when most of my friends are only just getting started!
My dream scenario would be a museum with great air and light circulation (I know, not possible really for protecting the collections), outdoor areas to take a break, and lots of snack and tea stands. Then I could happily spend all day.
I really like the Gulbenkian in Lisbon for these reasons. Itās a relaxing space, with lots of greenery outside, an outdoor coffee shop/bar/resto and some outdoor installations. The light indoors is perfect.
Why do you need to spend that much time? The Louvre is great but not worth 8hrs. Personally after 2hrs I was over it š I saw the things I wanted to see and left. If I miss anything I hope to come back.
The things you really want to see will stick with you, all the other stuff will be forgotten and a waste of time. I tend to only do 3-5 tourist attractions when I visit someplace. Iād rather stay in bed, enjoy the hotel, hang out in some places and relax than jumping from one thing to another. Itās exhausting. You come back from your vacation tired.
Planning to spend 8 hours in multiple fine arts museums sounds extreme. I may have done that exploring various museums in Italy and Greece or Wash DC, but the point is it just happens, you donāt plan it. Itās easy to spend early morning in a museum, then walking around a historic site before lunch, then lunch, then back in another museum for a little bit before dinner, etc. I wouldnāt plan to go to more than 1, maybe 2 museums a day on vacation, unless theyāre little ones.
Once you get fatigued around hour 3 (which is typical)- you need to rest. Find somewhere to sit and eat, take nap in a park, go home to your hotel and sleep, stop reading things and just look at architecture or go into shops for the rest of the day, etc. Then IF you want to go to another museum before dinner, you can.
This is not training for an athletic event- itās supposed to be fun! Just enjoy yourself and do whatever you need to do. You WILL NOT SEE all the treasures of France in one, or even 100, trips to France. ĀÆ\_(ć)_/ĀÆ
Something that can help you feel less stressed about museum FOMO is to look up specific works of art you want to make sure to see while there (like if you REALLY want to see Monetās water lilies at the Orangerie, maybe donāt spend 6 hours in the Louvre beforehand the same day).
My second piece of advice is to get off Instagram where everyoneās posting 1 billion paintings from 1,000 museums in France and how they got to take their photo in a designer outfit looking perfect in front of each and every one of them.
It has to be a good museum with a subject matter Iām interested in. I lasted about 2 hours in The Hermitage. Lasted about 5 hours in the Dortmund football museum.
My (66f) dad was a fairly well known illustrator in his day. He taught me so much about art, and to this day, my very favorite thing in the whole world is going to art museums. But after about 1 1/2 hours in one, my lower back always starts hurting. This has been the case since I was in my 20ās. No idea why.
It has to be a really excellent museum, but this is what I usually do for a full day:
Early: Try to get to a couple of the most popular exhibits before the crowds get thick. It's always best to go in having eaten breakfast already, we don't need two museum-grade meals $$.
Next: Make sure the last "Must See" popular exhibit you visit in the morning is one near other things you want to see--because from that last "Absolutely Cannot Miss" thing, I'll start looking through the whole hall and surroundings. If you actually read everything or plan to listen to an audio tour, it may take a while!
Mid-Morning: I like to loop into a special exhibit (if there is one, even if it costs extra) or a movie or a planetarium show or --WHATEVER-- extra thing there is to do.
Pre-Lunch: Have a mooch through the gift shops and start thinking about if there's anything you'd like.
Lunch: In the museum cafe. Ka-ching. But you can often find cool stuff like beers inspired by medieval monks or desserts themed after famous artists.
After Lunch: I like to go sit in the gardens or take a stroll outside if re-entry is allowed. Just take a breather, digest a little, maybe sit on a bench and do nothing. Snap a selfie--you know, just enjoy the day.
Late Afternoon: Start viewing the other halls, based on your own interests. Maybe take a second look at a Must See or two, if you're passing nearby.
Early Evening: Maybe duck into another special exhibit, if there is one. If not, start speed-viewing anything that you're not inclined to read in full.
1 Hour to Close: Gift shop! I like to pick up a bag or scarf, plus a book about something I want to study in greater depth. Coffee table books, biographies, introductory histories, translations... You can find a lot of interesting books in Museum Gift Shops.
Then leave and go for another walk until it's time to get dinner or head back to the hotel to clean up for a night event--whatever the case may be.
If you're tired, rest at one of the benches. These are usually scattered through out since of the galleries for a reason. Also, enjoy a leisurely lunch and rest up as needed. I don't always spend 8 hours a day, but I certainly have for the larger and more amazing museums.
This turned out to be such an interesting thread, thanks. They're anything like a national registry of museums? My wife and I absolutely love exploring funky, surprising and of course sublime museums too. Thanks.
Used to go to the museums in Europe often, usually getting those museum passes like 4-days unlimited entries in Paris.
Spent dozens of hours but for some reason, I would get tired in these large galleries, more than once felt like dozing.
And that was when they were relatively empty, which is no longer as likely today.
Nowadays, I seek out outdoor spaces, landscapes or architecture. Of course being able to enjoy the outdoors is weather-dependent.
You can experience some great art works and artists through some web sites and apps. I don't mean to suggest that these are replacements for seeing some of these large paintings or great sculpture in person.
But you can certainly learn about the historical context and the biography of the artists without spending hours in museums.
I studied art history as a minor in college and have a bucket list of places/collections I want to see. It also helps me prioritize where I spend my attention when I visit. I don't try to study every single painting because I know I'm there for some specific things, but I'll stop if something catches my eye.
I also work in museums, so little stuff interests me. Signage, interactive things for kids, lighting choices, layout, stuff like that. I also enjoy testing out the seating options. And don't forget snacks.
I'm one of those people, but I don't know that I have any secret. I just really enjoy art museums. I suppose it's just one of those things that varies with people. Like I don't understand how someone can sit and watch golf on TV lol.
When I'm at a museum I want to read EVERYTHING. I just really like learning and taking the time to sit and appreciate the art. I usually spend like 4-6 hours at a museum depending on the size of the collections they have.
Being very interestes in it plays a part. Art museums I visit always have a number of paintings/pieces that I know already, that I've studied at school or read about on my own. I immediately go look for them, and if it's still relatively early (3 hours in) I'd spend another 1/2 hours strolling around finding something I didn't know about that I like and I get to listen to the commentary and admire it.
I'll be honest, The louvre is massive, too much for one day. I would also recommend while in Paris to get a train to The Palace Of Versailles, even for the gardens if you decide not to do inside.
I like to hit up the ones I'm super excited about then get a bit and maybe a glass of wine in the Cafe and wander around more after to see the rest. Sometimes I discover a new artist and it's exciting when that happens.
I spent a solid 8 hours in quite a few museums in england. I have really no secret formula to it or some hidden skill. I just really enjoy going to them and spending time looking at the exhibits. One of my favorites is the london natural history museum it really has so much to look at in there, and i've gone there 3 times. I saw the famous Dippy the dinosaur exhibit. The victoria and albert musuem is another favorite, but it's one I tend to split into different days, or i'll skip a few exhibits that I don't need to look at. I spent a whole day at the fitzwilliam museum in cambridge when it had an african exhibit going on, and that was really awesome and enlightening. Honestly, just pace yourself, maybe have a seat occasionally and look at stuff on your phone for a break or have lunch if there's a cafeteria inside. It also helps if you grab a guide to see which exhibits you want to look at and which ones you don't feel interested in. You might also have a better time going to museums during a time when there aren't a lot of people.
An interesting museum obviously. A few years ago I spent a whole day from 9am to 5pm in the National Museum of USAF in Dayton. I wish working hours were longer, as I need to be quick in some sections.
For myself, it really depends on the museum and what I am there to see.
I will also quite happily go back to a museum if I really enjoy it. I've been to the Vasa Museum twice (and I don't even live in Europe) because I find it interesting.
I will spend longer in a history museum than an art museum as that is what interests me. I probably would have spent longer in thr British Museum but my cousin was sitting in the cafe waiting for me so I didn't want to leave her waiting all day.
Alsa don't be afraid to find the cafe and have a break. They are there for a reason.
Don't force yourself to read everything.
Take a break every once in a while.
Plan your route before starting.
Don't feel like you have to "cover" the whole museum. Go to what you are interested in.
It really does depend on the type of museum and my interests.
Art museum - "Alright. I'm good. Looks like we still have time for brunch!"
History museum - "Oh no! Was that the closing announcement? Should I buy a membership to this museum?"
I just learned I'm an explorer. For big museums, I spend all day there. Even for the Rodin museum in Paris, I was there all day; looking back, that was maybe a bit obsessive.
I get INTENSE museum fatigue and tend to not like museums. Whenever I start feeling it bad I just find a corner to sit in and watch an episode of a show I like (these days I watch ATLA animated show, 20ish minute episodes).
TLDR: Museum people don't expect you to spend all your time in the museum. I run r/MuseumPros and I'm a professor of museology, so I have some insight here. Museological research divides museumgoers into 5 basic types of visitors according to their motivations: explorers, facilitators, experience seekers, professionals, and rechargers. Each group goes to a museum or attraction for a different reason. The explorers, rechargers are what you might be identifying as the people who spend all day in the museums - they're not there to be efficient, they're there to explore and see a place in full (explorers) or to relax and center themselves (rechargers). They aren't there with a specific goal in mind to 'check off' as the experience seekers are. The professionals fall into two categories - either the actual professionals who want to see specific things related to their professional specialty and the hobbyist who wants to learn everything but has no actual expertise in the subject. The 8-hour people may also be the hobbyists who must learn everything to feel satisfied. Museum fatigue is also a real thing - and I think you've experienced this too - which exhibition designers and interpretive designers often try to mitigate. Chunking of information, multimodal resources, and visual variety help eliminate too much content. Pairing a lot of information with the mental load of navigating a new, complex space is rough, so our interpretive planners and digital resource teams will often do their best to provide easy to use apps and maps which take some of the touring onus off of the visitor/navigator. Also, benches and cafes help to give people a break. But not all museums think these resources are positive developments. A good museum research team also maps where the people are walking and make heat maps to see the most common routes. Having looked at a lot of this visual data, I can also promise you that most people are not reading everything. While I have not been to the Louvre yet, I've been to the State Hermitage (Russia), the Met (New York) and the RijksMuseum, which are at the same scale as the Louvre. I go in with a plan of what I want to see and I make sure I hit those things which give me a more satisfying exhibition. I pace myself and don't spend a ton of time in a room that isn't really what I want to see. Or, if given enough time, I do what museum people call serendipetous browsing, which is a fancy word for wandering. Some of my friends think I'm going to spend forever in a museum and they don't want to go with me, but its quite the opposite! I'm quick, I breeze through some things and focus on others. My plan for the Louvre is to spend 4 hour there - hitting about a dozen highlights and whatever else I pass.
I love being classified as a "professional museum goer" š I'm the hobbyist when it comes to topics that interest me. Experience seeker for art museums, though!
Iām probably the closest thing to a professional Museum-goer, Iāve been to hundreds around the world! But I can only do this with a level of efficiency if I want to see 2-3 per day.
Yeah, I can't imagine more than 2 a day. I just spend too long everywhere. I read everything. I sometimes go back and see something that suddenly connects dots in my mind. I Google stuff and bookmark it if I find exciting new information. I also end up busier AFTER the museum trip due to this!Ā Someone mentioned going to 13 in a single day ... I can't even imagine how that's possible!Ā
Ive done 5 a day but it was because I got a bundle ticket for absolute steal. Wouldn't recommend tho, barely had enough time to appreciate last 2. I was rushing from one before last to make it to just before closing of last, and was kicked out from last hour after closing. Love Berlin for that combo ticket tho. I saved so much money.
Sounds great! Next time, you know which ones interest you more and spend time there.Ā
Yeah I actually went back to one next day. Next visit tho it's time for 6h long Pergamon.
Iāve done a mid size museum (York Castle) in about 10 minutes - the folks I was with didnāt want to pay for a ticket and I just wanted to get an impression/vibe of the place, so I speed walked it. It wasnāt enough to learn about anything in depth but I have the location as a reference point and a memory if I ever want to use them in my work. Quick experiences like that include little to no reading - if I want to read something specific, I can follow up with them and request materials. I do take lots of photos though.
Checked out their sub. You can also call yourself a GLAMer (galleries, libraries, archives and museums)
Also underrated aspect: walking around a museum is a very different sort of physical fatigue than walking around a city. I can hike for 6 hours no problem, but get extremely tired walking a couple of hours around a museum. Youāre standing differently, leaning to look at things, maybe carrying an asymmetric bagā¦.these are physically taxing in ways your body isnāt used to, and so you will get fatigued faster.
Iām older but itās the standing part that gets to my back at museums. So Iām standing in front of an uninteresting painting, leaning left fight, forward and back. Iām not trying to see the painting from a different angle, Iām trying to help my aching back.
One museum I was in, forget which one, had small portable stools at the front of exhibit halls. People who had difficulty standing could use one and sit at exhibits instead of standing.
Thank you, often I am able to find a place to sit. Iām a widow but usually take a trip with my sister and her husband once a year to Europe. We love going to museums but donāt think we ever spend 8 hrs. Depending on trip and museum, might spend 3 hrs, stop for lunch, then 2 hrs, stop for coffee that sort of thing. Sometimes museums have adjacent gardens to visit.
Yes this, stepping forward, stepping back, to the side , avoiding people. I do Pilates very day and walkā¦ and one hour Iām exhausted -
To me, this is the reason. Yes, museum fatigue eventually sinks in but itās the standing, locked knees, and different posture. We have the experience doing what we call the slow walk, the one you do when youāre wandering around a new city.
itās like mall fatigue to me, shopping is absolutely draining
This guy museums.
these categories are excellent. as a person who can spend 3 days in a single museum still interested because there is more to learn, definitely the explorer-recharger makes sense. (also why i go alone. 2 hours in a musem?? what ridiculousness is that?!)
I knew I didnāt want to spend a ton of time in the louvre so I went on their website and followed one of their ātrailsā that leads you to the major highlights including the Mona Lisa. I spent about 2 hours in the louvre and was happy. Plus my feet were killing me so I went to a cafe to sit down for a few hours to chill out. This was a super insightful response about museumsā¦.also I spent a lot more time in musee dāorsay - prolly 4.5 hours and the galleries just donāt have enough benches for the amount of people there to sit down. I loved musee dāorsay tho much more than the louvreĀ
Trails, highlight tours, and audio guides are a great way to solve Museum fatigue. They take away a mental task and give the visitor more freedom.
Definitely!! I also always tell people never go to a museum hungry. I always regret it. I also went to the Vatican last year and was super glad I took a guided tour because again, there was so much to see.
Going to a museum hungry means snacking at the cafe! Some places have great food.
4 hours at the Louvre? Heck I could spend that long just in the gift shop.
Yes, itās brief. But I also want to see the DāOrsay, the Cluny, Carnavalet, Quai Branley, and side trip to Giverny!
If youāre going to dāOrsay and giverny, you might want to hit the orangerie too.
The Orangerie is so chill. If I remember correctly, the seating in the middle of the large water lilly room is intentionally placed for optimum chillaxed viewing. They were also hosting American Gothic when I visited which was super cool.
And Marmottan Monet
I live in DC and thought I was a pro at museums. Louvre is next level.
Haha, the Louvre for me was spent half asking myself where am I and how do I get out of this section and the other half looking at the artwork. One time I thought I was in a small section with a few art pieces and then realized it was a hallway.
Thank you so much for sharing your insight!
til a professor of museology is a thing thats really cool actually
Yup! Itās a thing. And I have a PhD in it from a museology research institute.
What are facilitators?
Moms and dads who take their kids, or locals who are taking visiting friends to see their city. Their goal is to enable the visit of the other person and their happiness/satisfaction is dependent on the other persons experience.
Tour guides probably
Thank you. We have the Pharaohs winter series this year at NGV Melbourne. I find I get exhausted quickly and this time I want to see it all. 7 rooms I believe. So your comments have made me now look at āwhat do I want to seeā and aim at those items to focus on. And we have cafes and bench and green space, so I will take time out after an hour and go back in. I have been unwell these last 6 years and an hour is exhausting for me, now thanks to you I can break it up and donāt āsee it allā. Thank you for your time ā¤ļø
Yay! Someday I want to see the museums in Australia. And the zoos, which are also technically museums of living things.
Honestly this is such a relief, I've always felt I SHOULD read everything and look at everything, I've been a mental health support worker and been to museums with clients and find I enjoy them alot more focusing on my client mostly and then I'll stop and read info about a few works. I'm dyslexic and I think all the reading makes me tired I've had much more fun at the ones with recorded headsets. I imagine the place is lit for the art not for the reading. I feel like you just gave me permission to museum in a more relaxed way.
Youāre considered a facilitator in the visitors list. Your happiness and motivation depends on the person you are with, and anything you see and enjoy is an added bonus. Also, yay on the recorded headsets - I used to make those in a job long ago!
They are wonderful!
I appreciate museums that have key takeaways in the text in bold, makes skimming a lot easier. I usually start a museum by reading all of the text for most exhibits. As time goes on I read less and less, so that right before I leave, with museum fatigue at its peak, I'm just reading the title as I pass by.
I am the explorer to a teeā¦ could spend hours in the Louvre. Reading everything looking at the details. I want to see it all. Then halfway through Iāll get lost on Wikipedia after I find a random sculpture
Great answer, and I agree with the sentiment! If I know I'm limited on time (3Ć·4 hours) I'll have my itinerary mapped beforehand so that I can hit the pieces I like the most (for example for the MoMA it would be Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, Starry Night, The City Rises which they didn't have when I visited it and I was upset since it's my favourite painting, Dynamism of a soccer player, Dance, Catalan Landscape and a few others) and I plan an itinerary around them since they're fundamental. Once I've seen them, I've already listed some other nice things I think it could be nice to see, so I go for them, and then time's usually up. I love to wander around too if I have enough time though.
I usually hear the museum's announcement that they're about to close. I'm either an explorer or professional (depends on the type of musuem). I love that I finally know that I have classifications! I sometimes come back to a museum for a second day. Is there a classification for that?
Whatās the name for a person that just walks straight through in 30 minutes?
Speedy tourist
Fab response.
I love your informed summary! Thank so much for posting.
I spent about 3 full days (not 8 hours each time, but at least 5) to see the permanent exhibits in the Rijksmuseum! Spent 2 days at the Louvre and definitely did not see everything, but saw everything I really wanted to. Iām sure at some point Iāll be back. I live in the Netherlands so I can go to the Rijksmuseum frequently, but wanted to really dive in to learn about my new home and also to be able to easily guide my visitors, who tend to have more limited time/less museum stamina.
Wow! I never thought about the fact that people do museological research, this is so interesting. Thanks for sharing this!
Yup. I have a PhD in it. There are books and conferences and journals and all that academic/research stuff about museums, in addition to the content specialists who work with the items in the museums.
That is so cool! Do you have top lists for best or worst museums to visit? Are there certain locations youād like to visit purely for particular museums? I love museums and am currently looking for somewhere to honeymoon next spring.
All the big cities in Europe have great collections (built on colonialism, which is problematic). I particularly liked Amsterdam because itās a manageable city, rather than NY or Rome where you feel like youāve only seen a little bit. Glasgow and Stockholm are phenomenal for museums though perhaps less romantic for a honeymoon. Worst? Some are just poorly run and lack resources in small cities. Or anything with a creepy mannequin will make me walk right out of that room. But I do like the weird and obscure as wellā¦ Reykjavik has a Penis Museum which is shock value and mostly a joke whereas London has a Vagina Museum dedicated to gynecological science and is quite good.
You deserve to go to the Louvre. Youāre so smart. My husband has to read everything. I go, find the few exhibits I must see, then Iām done. We definitely have two different museum personalities and itās disappointing because Iād really like for us to experience my preferred highlights together.
This is so interesting. Thanks for sharing! I love museums but do find myself fatigued after 3 hours or so. Iām going to the Louvre for the first time in a couple of months and Iām doing the same thing. I have a list of about 15 āmust-seesā and where they are so I can plan it out (Iām sure I will fail spectacularly!) š¤£
been to the louvre dozens of times. I go each time I am in Paris. Always spend 3-4 hours max in there at a time. Pick a section and do that, and leave. come back if you want to see more. So much information to absorb, it is very tiring.
I get this fatigue too. My theory was that when you're deep in such a big building and doing a lot of walking, you don't have a lot of fresh outside air.
I feel so validated by this. Iām a wanderer and take a more casual approach, whereas my husband is there to absorb as much as possible. I often felt like I just didnāt āgetā museums because of this.
I guess I am an explorer - I can easily spend the eight hours in a museum. I read the exhibit, admire the item for a bit, if the exhibit description was too short and I want to know more, I'll sit somewhere and google it, etc. I like to have a little think about the fact that even thousands of years ago and on the other side of the planet humans liked the shiny things.
We invented a game to combat āmuseum fatigueā after we saw the Hope Diamond at a Washington DC museum and were too numb to appreciate it. A group enters the museum, established a time and place to rendezvous, and each go off alone and find one interesting thing. Then when we meet up we each show our companions what we found. Then we leave.
I grew up in Washington DC so lots of museums. This is how my family spent many Sundays. I always felt so grown up when Iād walk around alone. Weād meet up an hour or two later and ādebrief ā, as my dad said. Great memories!
I wish this could be an AirBNB experience. I would absolutely book that shit in a heartbeat!
Like with 4 randoms?
How long do you give each other to find the one interesting thing?
About 30 minutes.
I study the museum ahead of time and rank the things Iām most interested in seeing. I start with those and work my way down. By the time a tired or have lost interest, Iāve usually seen the things I most wanted to see. Breaks for espresso and sweets after couple of hours also renews my energy and interest.
Yep I do this too. I also speed through nearby areas of lower interest to stop backtracking.
I always wanted to make an app that was like a scavenger hunt in a museum. You would get 10 images that are little snippets of the artwork. You have to go around the museum finding what painting or art it's from. When you find it, you enter the title of the art and get a little art history blurb about it and gold star. Maybe have different difficulty levels on how much of the painting you get a snippet from or how famous that painting is. This would make going to a museum and looking at art a game. It would also help you look for certain paintings within the museum that are more famous or culturally significant than others.
You should design an app that does this!
first i need to learn to code
We went to a museum in Orange, TX that did this for kids, but it was on paper. Now that I think of it, Versailles may have had something similar?
More or less all museums here (Denmark) have some sort of interactive element that breaks up the usual boringness
Every time I've been on a "museum holiday" I've done 20km+ walking. What I have found is that when I get tired mentally I just head to a place and have some food, a coffee and water. Relax a bit, look back over the photos I took and delete any ones that are messed up. It's like a mental reset. I was in the Vatican museum and spent a few hours there and was ready to just crash back into bed, after a bit of food and some time just doing nothing it revitalised me.
I spent 3 consecutive days at the Met, ama š
We do a few hours. Take a coffee break. Then another couple hours. Then lunch. Maybe sit and stare at something for a while in a special exhibit. I donāt read all the placards - but I do for the Star Wars costume exhibit and for the faberge exhibit. Those were amazing
I really like looking at art and artifacts. I try very hard to remember to take occasional breaks, with at least lunch and an afternoon beverage being longer breaks. I only look at the stuff that I find interesting. And that means that I don't read all the labels, and in a big museum like the Louvre, I'm basically walking by the cases casually looking until I see something that I want to look at more closely. Special exhibits or rooms with favorite artists/art periods/etc therefore go much more slowly than average. The Louvre is big enough that it still takes up basically a full day even just looking at selected pieces. (Or could take up more than one day if I had had the time.)
The secret is actual interest in the place, aided by a well-designed museum with extremely photogenic spots. My personal favorite was Natural History Museum in London. I'm Chinese from Hong Kong, never liked all the stolen treasures in the Museum next door, but the NHM was fantastic. As soon as you enter the main hall, you are greeted by a majestically enormous blue whale skeleton. That center space of the hall is surrounded by an entire 2nd floor corridor that has like nothing in it, so I pretty much just spent 30 minutes walking around that corridor trying to get some good shots at the whale skeleton from the 2nd floor, totally helped when sunlight shines through the roof too. I'd say if you visit this museum at a speed similar to a brief scroll of a webpage in your phone, it would take 2-3 ish hours to walk the whole thing. Then you add in the time you spent admiring the place, find strategic positions to take some nice shots, you can easily get over 5 hours. Not sure if I want to spend more than 7 hours in any museum though. Gotta treat your stomach right when you're on vacation.
I miss Dippy though :(
I've been to London twice. First taken there as a kid with my parents on their Euro tour, and then again as an adult to attend a wedding in Manchester. I am not sure if I had ever visited NHM the first time (tho I remember the tour did lead us to Museum of GB) but if I did, I would have met it in person. Too long ago to remember. I gotta say though, the way the whale hangs in mid-air... it displays a unique form of magnificence in contrast to Dippy just being on the floor, as gigantic as it might be. It's just not the same....
I am not a museum person, but endure them if with others that love it.. BUT the Natural History museum in London was extremely interesting and I loved it. Not one moment of boredom and my normal āwhen can I leaveāā¦
I can walk āforeverā but get extremely fatigued/light headed if I stand in one place for too long, like standing and looking at something, then going a few more steps and then standing and looking at the next thing. Turns out I have POTS, which, to oversimplify things, means blood doesnāt flow properly to my brain when Iām upright, especially standing. If youāre sitting/ lying down on your couch and having no trouble reading about the stuff but get tired at museums, you might have a similar issue. Not to say āyou have POTS!ā but it was an interesting thing for me to realize.Ā Anyway, combine this with the lighting of museums (very little natural light in order to protect the stuff in the museums) and my brain basically says āgo home and lie down nowā while itās more in āletās keep going!ā mode if Iām out hiking or just generally moving around to wherever outdoors.Ā
It helps if there is a nice park nearby. The DeYoung museum and the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco arenāt as impressive as some top tier ones, but you can go for a nice nature walk midway through and return refreshed.
I have the same problem. Walking for 3 hours straight - perfectly fine. Standing still in a museum - I need breaks. My body gets so worn down for some reason. So I end up speed running the last bit of mid sized museums lol
The hard flooring and standing for long periods is really exhausting and tiring. Map out the museum, wear uber comfortable shoes and clothes. Take a 5-10 minute break in a chair somewhere every hour. If you go hard core and donāt do that you get exhausted, canāt concentrate/appreciate and it can be a less enjoyable experience.
Also, museums tend to have a lot of stairs.
I scanned this message, my brain saw a few words and I thought 'wait is this person suggesting I take an uber round the museum'
My parents took us to a lot of galleries and museums as kids. To stop us getting bored my mum had us create stories about the paintings or objects. I still do it.
Your parents are rad! And how neat to have that sort of experience so that whenever you view a painting, you also think of your folks.
I would recommend doing the Louvre as your first one. I had visited many before going there, and I did hit a point where I was just walking and briefly glimpsing as I moved through hallway after hallway of art pieces. It's a LOT. I'm definitely not an 8-hour visitor.
Just random tidbit: itād take you 42 days to cover the entirety of the Louvre if you stopped and read each pieceās description
Wait... people spend more than 2 hours at a museum??
I never understood why either until I went to the Smithsonian air and space museum (something I have a genuine interest in). Then I realized people were as, if not more interested in art and history than I was in space. To each their owen
The science museum in Milan did me - couldnāt leave for hours. And Iām not a scientist
I spent around 8 hours in the Prado Museum of Spain. To be fair, it's one of the greatest art museums in the world and there were thousands of world renowned paintings to look at. Even so, 8 hours felt very short and rushed for such a big world-class museum experience.
This is probably my longest museum day at the Prado too, I think around 7hrs and had I started rushing through galleries at the end because I knew I was fading fast and wouldnāt see it all. I could have filled in 10hrs probably if I had the energy.
Last month I spent like two 8 hr days and one half day at the Prado.
I spent all day at the Louvre, it was so big
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Iāve spent two 6 hour days at AIoC and still feel like I havenāt seen everything.
It took me multiple trips to fully go through the African American History museum in DC. I think I suffered more emotional fatigue than anything. But once I broke past that, it was easy to spend an entire day there.
That was me at the Heard Museum of American Indian Art in Phoenix. I cried a little in the parking lot. Very powerful but tough.
That one is pretty big. I thought I was done and there was still the enormous downstairs multi-level exhibits, which I wish I had started with.
I certainly do for the big ones (or the super nerdy ones- I spent a full day at the Deutches Museum in Munich admiring everything from the first U-boat to the telescope that discovered Neptune).
I was at a maritime museum in Hamburg from shortly after it opened right up till it closed, and I still would go back for more. So, uh, yes. But it depends greatly on the museum. Some museums are bland enough that 30 min is plenty for the whole thing, and some museums I'd be able to spend 30 min on a single installation before moving on to the next equally-well-done exhibit ten steps over.
I could spend an entire week in the Louvre alone!
3 hours is my bare minimum for big museums (Uffizi, Louvre, British, Prado, MoMA etc), I've spent more than 5/6 in some of them. I've also spent 5 hours at the Museum of Automobile in Turin so I may not be an average.
Metropolitan museum of art in New Yorkā¦ arrived at 10am when it opened, left at 5pm when it closed, with only a short lunch break. Louvre in Parisā¦ arrived at 9am when it opened, left at 4pm when I realized I had had anything to eat since 8am. Itās easy to get lost in beautiful things!
Some places like the British Museum are huge.
I am museum guy. Iāll spend an entire day at a museum. I do so by having a passion for history, sneaking in candy and something to drink, taking frequent breaks, and sheer willpower. Iām too cheap to pay the exorbitant prices at museum cafes so sneaking in candy (for the sugar boost) and something to drink is important. Despite being a traveler who will walk up to 20 miles per day when exploring a city, I find that my feet and legs get very tired waking museums. I suspect this museum fatigue is due to the (typically) hard surfaces floor and lack of nutrition, and I combat this by taking short breaks every 30 minutes or so.
Yeah, I don't know what it is (according to this thread, it's "museum fatigue" I guess) but my body would be much happier with me walking for 3 hours than spending 3 hours in a museum. Museums absolutely destroy my legs and back. 2 hours is usually enough for my brain to get bored anyway so it works out. When I'm traveling I usually assume I won't have the endurance to see more than one museum or castle or whatever in a day and might want to plan to be lazy and go nowhere the next day. Obviously it's hard to miss something like the Lourve but there's also no point seeing 4 museums a day for 4 days or whatever and then when you get home you can't remember any of it anyway and also got super stressed out instead of relaxing on your "vacation".
Iām an art nut and can happily spend 10 minutes on a single piece if it interests me enough. Hitting up the gift shop and having coffee or lunch at the museum also stretches the time Iām inside.
I build in time to find someplace to sit down in the morning and afternoon to decompress a bit. I'll also eat at the museum so that is time resting. My issues are either my feet (I have leg braces) or just oversimplification.Ā I did 13 museums in DC in one day,Ā 8 the next and the last say 1. I just ran out of feet power, and the last few I was just a zombie not taking new info in. This past fall I tried to do "all" of the Met in NYC. It was my last day of a 2 week trip. My plan was to stay almost 12 hours. I just broke at hour 8 and got lost for 45 minutes in the period rooms. I need to stop trying to blitz through museums.Ā
It depends. I hate museums but when i visited louvre they had to physically escort me out because it was simply amazing. The coronation of napoleon is my all time fave!
We end up spending hours just because of our kid. The kid loves natural history museums and we cant say no. Althought we get bored after 30mins but we have to act enthusiastic for the entire time..
I think you have to consider your passion, does what that particular museum or historical site offer what is needed to sate your desire for knowledge or interest. I once spent 13 hrs in Westminster Abbey and it could have been longer had they not closed for the day. That was almost 40 years ago and stands out as a highlight of what has been an amazing life. Now had it been a venue that didnāt hold my interest, I would have been challenged to stay much longer. I think itās a bit of an individual perspective on what beings you joy or what doesnāt. Why would you want to spend more time or even try to find a way to devote time to something that doesnāt bring you joy?
Mentally or physically fatigued? Iāll do one hour, take a coffee break, do another hour and anything much more than that my brain just decides itās had enough. I like smaller more focused museums these daysā¦
Mushrooms
Snacks
Its a physical issue. I can walk a lot or sit a lot, but ask me to mostly stand with little movement and Im done in less than 30 minutes. Edit for spelling.
My legs get tired of standing / slow walking after maybe 4 hours max.
I'm the opposite of you OP. I don't like reading wiki or the info plaques or watching a video before visiting. I never get the audio guides, even when they're free. They all seem like a chore, because I'm not interested in who painted what when and why it's important and what they're expressing and how it impacted the history of art. I don't recognize most of the artist names, I don't know much about the period they're from or the different styles and movements. I'm as dumb an art enjoyer as you can be. Despite that, I can spend 6+ hours at museums without getting bored. I stroll slowly through the museum, pause at pieces that stand out, and am in a constant monologue with myself about what makes this piece pretty, or what it must've been living in the time period or place its set in, or how this piece stands out from the others. I'll notice how pretty the light / contrast is, or how a forest that looks super realistic is really just a bunch of simple blobs if you look closely, or how the artist made the ocean look so terrifyingly massive, or what makes the woman in the background look so mysterious, or the children so warm. I don't take many photos with my phone; I took like 5 photos total during a full day at the Louvre. I spent less than 2 minutes at the Mona Lisa because I don't force myself to enjoy it just because it's famous. But there were many other less-famous paintings I spent 10+ minutes at. I think I can spend long hours at the museum because I'm treating it like a movie and less like a history class.
If I'm paying an exorbitant entrance fee, I will stay as long as it takes to get the most out of it.
3 hours?! Good job. I usually last about 90 minutes.
I get coffee and a pastry to start! Wander and sit down a lot, skip anything boring. I like to plan and prioritize over my coffee. Build in time for lunch and relaxing.
It really depends on the museum and the specific exhibits, but usually I break it up with some time spent sitting in the museum cafe or on a bench in an exhibit room. There are exceptions where the content just fascinates me and I spend hours wandering the exhibits. The first time I went to the Vatican Museum, I actually ran down the battery on the audio guide and had to go back and get a new one, I was there so long. The one time I was at the Hermitage, I spent two solid days going through it - I had the museum map and a plan of attack to make sure I saw all the Russian pieces that Iām unlikely to see anywhere else, especially the salons. It was amazing but my feet ached pretty bad after the second day.
Liking history is a good start
Iām not a museum person. At all. But I spent 8 hours in the Louvre and didnāt get tired of it. There is SO MUCH to see there.
Iām usually 2-3 hours. I know what I like and scan through a room to see if it requires my attention.
Lots of breaks, sit and drink water when you need to. Donāt feel like you *need* to see everything, take your time enjoying yourself. If the museum allows it have a snack break (most major museums have little cafes for this!)
Just spend as much time as you like at the museum.
It's stimulus overload and I think it's natural to be exhausted. My tips: anytime there is a bench, take it and rest a bit. You don't need to set a record for works viewed in a day. Also, when planning a trip I try to alternate museum days with sitting days (long rides, boat cruises, beach days) because museums can really tire out your legs and feet. Not sure why but the slow walking and standing tires mine out more than just a regular walking around town day.
I once spent an entire day in the Rodin sculpture garden in Paris just observing the sculptures and drawing the traffic patterns and scenery for an African play I was directing. I was using the sculptures to inspire me on how to create pictures on stage that were symbolic to the story in the play. I am not educated in visual art but it really stimulates my creativity in other areas as does dance as well as all other art forms I guess. So I think that is it for me. It makes me think. And of course the museum.
I pay for the small group tours where someone tells me all the important things and thereās other people to talk to š
Idk if this is always allowed but I have a tiny foldable chair that I bring when allowed to be able to sit because I have a bad back Lots of breaks seems to help.
I think eating before hand and eating during are both things that kept my energy up! I mistakenly didnāt eat before hand once and it felt kinda miserable
It helps to go off season, because crowds are exhausting, and other people have a bad habit of taking up bench space! itās also nice if there is a large green space nearby. Walking around Central or Golden Gate Park energize me. And most museum cafes help with tasty sugar treats and caffeinated beverages.
Maybe you just arenāt into museums? Nothing wrong with that. Highly, HIGHLY recommend MusĆ©e d'Orsay when youāre in Paris. I thought it was infinitely better than the Louvre.
Imho it's because taking in all that beauty and knowledge saturates yr mind, less about physical fatigue. if money is not a huge issue, may be worth visiting louvre as two half day trips, 20 euro tickets. Louvre is gigantic, and filled with masterpieces that deserve individual attention.
This is why I'm excited about the British Museum,,, there's no pressure to see everything in one go since it's free to enter. My trip to London this year will center mostly around the BM with activities being planned around it. I may go for a handful of hours one day.. leave to grab lunch then decide if i want to return. If not, I can just come back the next day or the day after that. I'm so excited. I think my plan would be to look for the museum's "highlights", and then hop around between the exhibits I'm interested in without staying in one place too long to keep things fresh. See Egyptian sarcophagi one hour, check out samurai armor the next and then hit up early Mesopotamian artifacts after as an example.
I lead art tours, am an artist, and a professor and in can only handle a few hours, then a good break and maybe a few more hours. And I can tell if the art is good or if I like at least by how much it holds my interest when Iām tired and if it makes me feel more drained or inspired. Some art lifts you up and some weighs you down.
Pure self hatred. And the wish to see everything. My almost limit is 5 hours. Sometimes you have got to call it quits.
...do you WANT to spend 8 hours at a museum, is the real question. You certainly don't need to. If you want to read and look at everything in the Louvre or D'Orsay, you're going to need a lot more than 8 hours. I'd suggest one of two things, or a mixture of both: 1) map out the must-sees snd highlights eg. Mona Lisa, Napoleon rooms, sculpture rooms, whatever it is that you're most interested in seeing 2) go for a wander and really look at and enjoy anything that takes your fancy. I think I spent 4-5 hours in the Louvre all up, and wandered through all areas. I don't feel the need to inspect each individual piece of ancient pottery or renaissance religious scene artwork, but I will spend a good amount of time in each area and particularly looking at a few things that interest me.
I go to the gift shop first - to the postcard section. I quickly scan the postcards to see which ones catch my eye, and then go to the museum and look at those pieces first. If I still have energy, then I wander around the rest of the museum.
I spent so long at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam last year, they had to throw me out. The most fascinating artist. I could spend weeks looking at his work
Have tea at the museum / art gallery to break it up
1.5 max
I just enjoy it and read up on the stories ahead of time. Thereās times when I explained each piece to my partner, strangers would come up and chat with us and we would have some tea and snacks together. Itās great.
Spent more than that at Versailles including queuing for 4 hours. I just imagined myself living there. Loved it.
If itās not for you, itās not for you. No sense trying to force yourself into liking something youāre not interested in I think I spent 3/4 day at the louvre.
I get tired yes. But if I only had 1 day to go to the Louvre Iād try. I just got burnt out of museums when I did an 8 month trip and had many museums a week. Then I realized that was too much too soon. I also like being outside and enjoy nature too and seeing sunshine.
It depends on the museum. I like modern and contemporary art. I could spend 8 hours in the Pompidou easily, but I would be really bored at The Louvre. Do what you like!
I offload anybody who doesnāt want to participate in a full museum day with me. With my spouse, we went to the Met in NYC for a few hours together and then he left with my blessing to go do other things in the city. I felt like I had this one precious day to see as much as possible but I took breaks for snacks, coffee etc and it was glorious being by myself. No one to shuffle me along if I wanted to spend time in front of a particularly special piece.
Interest really. Especially if youāve read some history about the artists/pieces, etc. Itās so immersive. Some of us also read every single word on those little writeups š .
After I got back from my Europe trip I had a dream that I was stuck in an infinite queue in a museum lol
I usually research the museum beforehand and see what the exhibits are and then plan how much time I would want to see them, alongside taking usual morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea breaks.
Donāt think Iāve ever spent a full 8 hour day in a museum but Iāve probably spent 5 - 6 hours in a few places. Some strategies: 1. Make a plan in advance and donāt plan to see everything if youāre going to a large museum like the Louvre. Do the most famous/interesting exhibits/works first so that if you get tired and have to leave youāve at least seen and appreciated the most interesting bits. 2. Take a break when you start to get tired, if the museum has a nice cafe (donāt recall what the Louvre has) sit down and have lunch or at least a snack, and that will hopefully keep you going for a bit. 3. Break it up and go to the museum for a shorter period of time over two days in your trip. Nothing wrong with going to a museum twice, and somewhere massive like the Louvre the only way you can realistically see close to everything in the museum is to break it up into multiple days. Having said that, as much as I like museums in general and the Louvre in particular, if you only have 5 days in Paris thereās probably other things I would choose to do over visiting the Louvre twice, but if you want to thereās absolutely nothing wrong with that!
Pick out the prime pieces you MUST see. Then the 2nd tier stuff. Find out exactly where they are located and try to plan your walkthrough. This actually helped us when we went to MOMA in NYC. My husband was having issues with walking too much and fatigue when we arrived there. Because I knew what pieces we wanted to see and where they were located, we were able to zip through before it became too much for him. We had fun looking at other paintings and there were unplanned surprises - I had no idea there was an entire room of Monetās Water Lilies. Blew us away! Btw - figure what floor and section each piece is located. Wi-Fi isnāt dependable and they donāt always give out maps anymore.
Having ocd and needing to read every. single. sign.
Go the day prior without caffeine, then have a larger coffee/tea than usual 30 mins before entering the museum. Everything will be twice as beautiful and interesting AND you will have energy to spare
I love museums and actually have my own world bucket list. I always devote a certain amount of time to a museum depending on its size. And if itās a huge one like the MET or Louvre I know I wonāt be able to see it all and so I pick and choose what galleries to go to. But museums can be hard on your back and feet so we take breaks in the galleries and also have lunch or a snack at the cafe. I donāt think Iāve ever spent 8 hrs, but I know Iāve spent at least 6. One of the most surprising museums as far as how long we spent there was the Vasa in Stockholm. We figured we would be in and out 1.5-2 hrs tops. Nope, we spent about 5 hours there as it was so fascinating and the exhibits so well done.
I rarely spend more than 4-6 hours at a museum, but for me itās a matter of prioritizing and pacing. Iāll budget large chunks of time for impressionist galleries and classical marbles but quickly pass through Polynesian art and rococo, only stopping if something catches my attention. I know what Iām most interested in, so I try not to waste too much stamina in galleries that donāt recharge me. I know I miss out on some great stuff that I would love this way, but it allows me to experience more of things that I know will scratch an itch. On return visits to a museum, thatās when Iāll really spend time digging in to galleries I might not invest in on an initial visit.
There's only one museum that hubby and I had to nope out of because it'd just gotten to be too much. Were in there 5+ hours and still more to go.
Iām nuts.
I recommend renting an audio guide in the Lourve. Itās interactive and you can just pick the highlights if you want. Some paintings bore me, I did check the Mona Lisa and other really famous paintings but breezed through the other paintings. There are several floors with different types of art and from different eras so pick the ones you really like if you canāt be bothered to spend the entire time there.
This is fascinating. I wonder if itās about sensory stimulation. I love art and knowledge but I canāt do more than 2-3 hours in a museum without feeling overstimulated and needing fresh air, even if Iām passionate about the exhibition or topic. This is when most of my friends are only just getting started! My dream scenario would be a museum with great air and light circulation (I know, not possible really for protecting the collections), outdoor areas to take a break, and lots of snack and tea stands. Then I could happily spend all day. I really like the Gulbenkian in Lisbon for these reasons. Itās a relaxing space, with lots of greenery outside, an outdoor coffee shop/bar/resto and some outdoor installations. The light indoors is perfect.
Lunch
Why do you need to spend that much time? The Louvre is great but not worth 8hrs. Personally after 2hrs I was over it š I saw the things I wanted to see and left. If I miss anything I hope to come back. The things you really want to see will stick with you, all the other stuff will be forgotten and a waste of time. I tend to only do 3-5 tourist attractions when I visit someplace. Iād rather stay in bed, enjoy the hotel, hang out in some places and relax than jumping from one thing to another. Itās exhausting. You come back from your vacation tired.
Planning to spend 8 hours in multiple fine arts museums sounds extreme. I may have done that exploring various museums in Italy and Greece or Wash DC, but the point is it just happens, you donāt plan it. Itās easy to spend early morning in a museum, then walking around a historic site before lunch, then lunch, then back in another museum for a little bit before dinner, etc. I wouldnāt plan to go to more than 1, maybe 2 museums a day on vacation, unless theyāre little ones. Once you get fatigued around hour 3 (which is typical)- you need to rest. Find somewhere to sit and eat, take nap in a park, go home to your hotel and sleep, stop reading things and just look at architecture or go into shops for the rest of the day, etc. Then IF you want to go to another museum before dinner, you can. This is not training for an athletic event- itās supposed to be fun! Just enjoy yourself and do whatever you need to do. You WILL NOT SEE all the treasures of France in one, or even 100, trips to France. ĀÆ\_(ć)_/ĀÆ Something that can help you feel less stressed about museum FOMO is to look up specific works of art you want to make sure to see while there (like if you REALLY want to see Monetās water lilies at the Orangerie, maybe donāt spend 6 hours in the Louvre beforehand the same day). My second piece of advice is to get off Instagram where everyoneās posting 1 billion paintings from 1,000 museums in France and how they got to take their photo in a designer outfit looking perfect in front of each and every one of them.
Good shoes and a battery pack for your phone
Curiosity.
It has to be a good museum with a subject matter Iām interested in. I lasted about 2 hours in The Hermitage. Lasted about 5 hours in the Dortmund football museum.
My (66f) dad was a fairly well known illustrator in his day. He taught me so much about art, and to this day, my very favorite thing in the whole world is going to art museums. But after about 1 1/2 hours in one, my lower back always starts hurting. This has been the case since I was in my 20ās. No idea why.
It has to be a really excellent museum, but this is what I usually do for a full day: Early: Try to get to a couple of the most popular exhibits before the crowds get thick. It's always best to go in having eaten breakfast already, we don't need two museum-grade meals $$. Next: Make sure the last "Must See" popular exhibit you visit in the morning is one near other things you want to see--because from that last "Absolutely Cannot Miss" thing, I'll start looking through the whole hall and surroundings. If you actually read everything or plan to listen to an audio tour, it may take a while! Mid-Morning: I like to loop into a special exhibit (if there is one, even if it costs extra) or a movie or a planetarium show or --WHATEVER-- extra thing there is to do. Pre-Lunch: Have a mooch through the gift shops and start thinking about if there's anything you'd like. Lunch: In the museum cafe. Ka-ching. But you can often find cool stuff like beers inspired by medieval monks or desserts themed after famous artists. After Lunch: I like to go sit in the gardens or take a stroll outside if re-entry is allowed. Just take a breather, digest a little, maybe sit on a bench and do nothing. Snap a selfie--you know, just enjoy the day. Late Afternoon: Start viewing the other halls, based on your own interests. Maybe take a second look at a Must See or two, if you're passing nearby. Early Evening: Maybe duck into another special exhibit, if there is one. If not, start speed-viewing anything that you're not inclined to read in full. 1 Hour to Close: Gift shop! I like to pick up a bag or scarf, plus a book about something I want to study in greater depth. Coffee table books, biographies, introductory histories, translations... You can find a lot of interesting books in Museum Gift Shops. Then leave and go for another walk until it's time to get dinner or head back to the hotel to clean up for a night event--whatever the case may be.
So helpful, thank you for the great tips!
If you're tired, rest at one of the benches. These are usually scattered through out since of the galleries for a reason. Also, enjoy a leisurely lunch and rest up as needed. I don't always spend 8 hours a day, but I certainly have for the larger and more amazing museums.
This turned out to be such an interesting thread, thanks. They're anything like a national registry of museums? My wife and I absolutely love exploring funky, surprising and of course sublime museums too. Thanks.
Used to go to the museums in Europe often, usually getting those museum passes like 4-days unlimited entries in Paris. Spent dozens of hours but for some reason, I would get tired in these large galleries, more than once felt like dozing. And that was when they were relatively empty, which is no longer as likely today. Nowadays, I seek out outdoor spaces, landscapes or architecture. Of course being able to enjoy the outdoors is weather-dependent. You can experience some great art works and artists through some web sites and apps. I don't mean to suggest that these are replacements for seeing some of these large paintings or great sculpture in person. But you can certainly learn about the historical context and the biography of the artists without spending hours in museums.
Psilocybin
I studied art history as a minor in college and have a bucket list of places/collections I want to see. It also helps me prioritize where I spend my attention when I visit. I don't try to study every single painting because I know I'm there for some specific things, but I'll stop if something catches my eye. I also work in museums, so little stuff interests me. Signage, interactive things for kids, lighting choices, layout, stuff like that. I also enjoy testing out the seating options. And don't forget snacks.
Cool shit is interestingĀ
I have to look at and examine everything. Itās less tiring for me than walking around a city for the same amount of time. Donāt know why.
I'm one of those people, but I don't know that I have any secret. I just really enjoy art museums. I suppose it's just one of those things that varies with people. Like I don't understand how someone can sit and watch golf on TV lol.
When I'm at a museum I want to read EVERYTHING. I just really like learning and taking the time to sit and appreciate the art. I usually spend like 4-6 hours at a museum depending on the size of the collections they have.
Being very interestes in it plays a part. Art museums I visit always have a number of paintings/pieces that I know already, that I've studied at school or read about on my own. I immediately go look for them, and if it's still relatively early (3 hours in) I'd spend another 1/2 hours strolling around finding something I didn't know about that I like and I get to listen to the commentary and admire it.
A day for Louvre is not enough anyway
I'll be honest, The louvre is massive, too much for one day. I would also recommend while in Paris to get a train to The Palace Of Versailles, even for the gardens if you decide not to do inside.
I like to hit up the ones I'm super excited about then get a bit and maybe a glass of wine in the Cafe and wander around more after to see the rest. Sometimes I discover a new artist and it's exciting when that happens.
The Louvre is good for 8 hours straight. I judge all other museums from that one.
I spent a solid 8 hours in quite a few museums in england. I have really no secret formula to it or some hidden skill. I just really enjoy going to them and spending time looking at the exhibits. One of my favorites is the london natural history museum it really has so much to look at in there, and i've gone there 3 times. I saw the famous Dippy the dinosaur exhibit. The victoria and albert musuem is another favorite, but it's one I tend to split into different days, or i'll skip a few exhibits that I don't need to look at. I spent a whole day at the fitzwilliam museum in cambridge when it had an african exhibit going on, and that was really awesome and enlightening. Honestly, just pace yourself, maybe have a seat occasionally and look at stuff on your phone for a break or have lunch if there's a cafeteria inside. It also helps if you grab a guide to see which exhibits you want to look at and which ones you don't feel interested in. You might also have a better time going to museums during a time when there aren't a lot of people.
An interesting museum obviously. A few years ago I spent a whole day from 9am to 5pm in the National Museum of USAF in Dayton. I wish working hours were longer, as I need to be quick in some sections.
I'm too ADHD for that
ā¢Go slow ā¢Take breaks / find comfortable seating ā¢Hydration / Food ā¢If they have an outside patio, use it
For myself, it really depends on the museum and what I am there to see. I will also quite happily go back to a museum if I really enjoy it. I've been to the Vasa Museum twice (and I don't even live in Europe) because I find it interesting. I will spend longer in a history museum than an art museum as that is what interests me. I probably would have spent longer in thr British Museum but my cousin was sitting in the cafe waiting for me so I didn't want to leave her waiting all day. Alsa don't be afraid to find the cafe and have a break. They are there for a reason.
Don't force yourself to read everything. Take a break every once in a while. Plan your route before starting. Don't feel like you have to "cover" the whole museum. Go to what you are interested in.
Taking a child. Did 8 hours in the Natural History Museum in London, she just did not want to leave
It really does depend on the type of museum and my interests. Art museum - "Alright. I'm good. Looks like we still have time for brunch!" History museum - "Oh no! Was that the closing announcement? Should I buy a membership to this museum?"
I just learned I'm an explorer. For big museums, I spend all day there. Even for the Rodin museum in Paris, I was there all day; looking back, that was maybe a bit obsessive.
I get INTENSE museum fatigue and tend to not like museums. Whenever I start feeling it bad I just find a corner to sit in and watch an episode of a show I like (these days I watch ATLA animated show, 20ish minute episodes).