4 January 2012

This time last year I had the idea that, as a challenge for the year, I would try to visit 52 museums in 52 weeks. However, with #MuseumBaby to look after I didn’t know how feasible this project was or whether I’d just end up being one of those mums who visits the National Museum of Scotland every other day because it’s free and it’s raining again outside. Turns out, a bit of both as the case was. But, either way, I didn’t tell anyone about my challenge just in case it ended up in complete failure.

As it turns out, I overshot my target and actually managed to visit 56 museums. Well, it depends slightly how you count (do a national library with an exhibition gallery and a palace count? and how about an open air museum where you end up sheltering in the pouring rain for half an hour without seeing much?), but either way I think I can safely say I completed the challenge. 40 of the visits were first time visits, and 156 were to museums I had previously visited before.

Here are the contenders in order of first visit (as some I visited more than once):

1. National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland (50+ visits)
2. Robert Burns Birthplace Museum, Alloway, Scotland (1 visit)
3. National Museum of Flight Scotland, East Fortune, Scotland (1 visit)
4. National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland (2 visits)
5. Queen’s Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland (1 visit)
6. Neanderthal Museum, Mettman, Germany (1 visit)
7. Bergisches Museum, Burg an der Wupper, Germany (1 visit)
8. NRW Forum, Düsseldorf, Germany (1 visit)
9. Röntgen Museum, Lennep, Germany (1 visit)
10. Wuppertaler Uhrenmuseum (Wuppertal Clock Museum), Wuppertal, Germany (1 visit)
11. K20 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Germany (1 visit)
12. Bibelmuseum, Wuppertal, Germany (1 visit)
13. Bibelzentrum des Evangelischen Bibelwerks in Rheinland, Wuppertal, Germany (1 visit)
14. Museum für Frühindustrialisierung (Museum for Early Industrialisation), Wuppertal, Germany (1 visit)
15. National War Museum Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland (1 visit)
16. Surgeon’s Hall Museum, Edinburgh, Scotland (2 visits)
17. Riverside Museum, Glasgow, Scotland (2 visits)
18. Museum on the Mound, Edinburgh, Scotland (2 visits)
19. Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland (1 visit)
20. National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland (1 visit)
21. Andrew Carnegie Birthplace Museum, Dunfermline, Scotland (1 visit)
22. Museum of Childhood, Edinburgh, Scotland (1 visit)
23. Rijksmuseum Schiphol, Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam (1 visit)
24. Museum für Naturkunde (Natural History Museum), Berlin, Germany (3 visits)
25. Berliner Medizinhistorisches Museum der Charité (Medical History Museum), Berlin, Germany (1 visit)
26. Pergamon Museum, Berlin, Germany (3 visits)
27. Berlinische Galerie, Berlin, Germany (2 visits)
28. Deutsches Currywurst Museum, Berlin, Germany (3 visits)
29. Mauermuseum: Museum Haus am Checkpoint Charlie (Berlin Wall Museum), Berlin, Germany (1 visit)
30. Deutsche Kinemathek: Museum für Film und Fernsehen (Museum for TV and Film), Berlin, Germany (1 visit)
31. Jüdisches Museum Berlin (Jewish Museum Berlin), Berlin, Germany (9 visits)
32. Museum of Broken Relationships, Zagreb, Croatia (1 visit)
33. Muzej Mimara, Zagreb, Croatia (1 visit*)
34. Muzej Grada Zagreba (Zagreb City Museum), Zagreb, Croatia (1 visit)
35. Etnograsfki Muzej (Ethnographic Museum), Zagreb, Croatia (1 visit)
36. Muzej ‘Staro Selo’ (‘Old Village’ Museum), Kumrovec, Croatia (1 visit)
37. Galerija Antuna Augustincica, Klanjec, Croatia (1 visit)
38. Muzej Krapinski Neandertalaca, Krapina, Croatia (1 visit)
39. HT Muzej (Museum of Post and Telecommunications), Zagreb, Croatia (1 visit)
40. Tifloski Muzej (Typhlological Museum), Zagreb, Croatia (1 visit)
41. Hofmobiliendepot: Möbel Museum Wien (Imperial Furniture Collection), Vienna, Austria (1 visit)
42. Demel Museum, Vienna, Austria (1 visit)
43. Wiener Kriminalmuseum (Vienna Crime Museum), Vienna, Austria (1 visit)
44. Dritte Mann Museum (Third Man Museum), Vienna, Austria (1 visit)
45. Landesmuseum Niederösterreich, St Pölten, Austria (1 visit)
46. Karikaturmuseum, Krems, Austria (1 visit)
47. Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin, Germany (1 visit)
48. Bode Museum, Berlin, Germany (1 visit)
49. Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin, Germany (1 visit)
50. Deutsches Historisches Museum (German Historical Museum), Berlin, Germany (2 visits)
51. Museum für Kommunikation (Museum for Communication), Berlin, Germany (3 visits)
52. Deutsches Technikmuseum (German Technology Museum), Berlin, Germany (1 visit)
53. Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland (1 visit)
54. Neues Museum, Berlin, Germany (1 visit)
55. DDR Museum, Berlin, Germany (1 visit)
56. Märkisches Museum, Berlin, Germany (1 visit)

For those who like statistics, here is a quick overview of museums visited per country and cities with most museums visited (all other cities had one visit each):

Created with ChartGo

Most Visited Museums

1. National Museum of Scotland (50+ visits) - although I was still employed there until June, these are all personal visits, most of them actually in the two months after leaving and before moving to Berlin. After the reopening alone, we visited every day for 20 days in a row, some of those twice in a day!
2. Jüdisches Museum Berlin (9 visits) - we live right next door, so perhaps it’s cheating a little. Some of these were visits to the exhibitions, some to events, and some just to hang out in their lovely glass courtyard and gardens.
3. Museum für Naturkunde, Museum für Kommunikation, Pergamon Museum, Deutsches Currywurst Museum, all in Berlin (3 visits each)

To avoid this post getting too long, I’m going to continue my review in Part 2, where I’ll be picking some of my favourites and other highlights.