Photo courtesy of Jeremy Barnett 

Poland is a country rich with history, and if you can experience it for free—all the better! Here’s a guide to a week of free museums. No need to spend a zloty to experience a wealth of Krakow’s art and history. 

Monday: Old Synagogue
24 Szeroka Street in Kazimierz

One of Europe’s most historic Jewish places of worship, the Old Synagogue is located in Krakow’s Jewish district, Kazimierz. It is an extension of the City of Krakow’s Historical Museum, and is considered the quintessential Jewish monument of Krakow. As such, it’s filled with relics of Kazimerz’s past including religious items, historic photos, and documents.

Tuesday: Museum of Municipal Engineering
15 Sw. Wawrzynca Street in Kazimierz

If you’re into gizmos and gadgets, then this museum is for you. The space feels like a virtual time machine into innovations past. Take in the old vehicles and other means of public transportation that date back to the early 1900s and explore technology’s impact on everyday life over the last two centuries.

Wednesday: Tourism Board

There’s a reason they call it “hump” day, folks. Take a break from museum wandering and check out Krakow’s tourism board web site for listings of free events. On the way, pick up a few paczki (pronounced poonch-keys). What a difference a day, and a doughnut, make!
                                                                                                                                                                          

Thursday: Czartoryski Palace Museum
19 Sw. Jana Street in Nowy Swiat

The Czartoryski is Krakow’s treasure trove of exhibitions. Founded in 1796 by Princess Isabella (credited with the motto “The Past to the Future”) the museum is most famous for housing Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Lady With An Ermine” along with Rembrandt’s “Landscape with the Good Samaritan”, and many more artifacts from the 13th to 16th centuries.

Friday: Dom Slaski (aka The Silesian House)
2 Pomorska Street just outside of Nowy Swiat

This museum is free everyday of the week (bonus!), but after all your other museum-hopping, you only have Friday left! First used as a Gestapo police headquarters, the Dom now hosts exhibits about World War II martyrdom and anti-nazi resistance. Admission itself is free, but it’ll cost a little extra if you want to take pictures.

Saturday: City of Krakow History Museum
35 Rynek Glowny in the Old Quarter

A patriotic little building proudly boasting the history of Krakow and its citizens, the History Museum has a compilation of old maps, documents, pictures, and city stamps. Its most appealing feature is a collection of colorful and intricate Krakow Christmas Cribs or szopkas.

Sunday: Archeology and Ethnography Museum
3 Poselska Street in the Old Quarter

Once used as a prison in medieval times, the Archeology and Ethnography Museum is home to the only known representation of a Slovanic deity, a four-faced 8-foot stone idol of Swiatowit. In addition, the museum always has a number of permanent and temporary displays.

Bonus Sunday: Museum of History of Photography
16 Jozefitów Street just outside of Nowy Swiat

Filled with exhibitions of present and past photography, daguerreotypes, cameras, and photo equipment, the Museum of History of Photography is a must-see for the still image artist-at-heart.

When visiting any city, we’re always relieved to find free activities to take the burden off our wallet. We’re happy to report that enchanted, moody Dublin offers a wide-range of high class sightseeing opportunities that won’t cost you a euro-cent. Our three faves:

Dublin Castle

For die-hard history buffs, reaching the Dublin Castle is like reaching the legendary pot of gold. The impressive stone castle is perched high atop the center of Dublin, overlooking the city. Tour the 13th-century Norman Tower and take a trip through the halls of its medieval prison. Free guided tours of all buildings on the castle grounds are available daily. Check out this historical landmark’s web site, with its interactive maps, 360-degree panoramic photos, and bite-sized history lessons.

Tip: Leave time for the gift shop where crystal jewelry and one-of-a-kind Belleek china pieces abound.

Irish Museum of Modern Art 

Old meets new at the impressive national modern art museum, housed in the 17th-century Royal Hospital Kilmainham, once home to retired soldiers. The museum was founded in 1990 and has been an artfully-big hit in Dublin ever since. As a result of generous donations and grants, its doors open daily for free. (cue: applause) A bit off the beaten path—it would take you about 40 minutes on foot—we highly recommend hopping on a bus and heading west of the city to take advantage of this collection.

Tip: Guided tours are free, but fill up quickly. Phone ahead or email the museum at least three weeks in advance to book a spot.

National Gallery of Ireland

Less of a gallery and more of a giant art consortium, this collection offers masterpieces by Irish superstars and European masters, alike. Free tours and lectures are offered daily and are often pegged to national themes. (Recent offering have included Turner’s influence on 20th-century artists, and the significance of Yeats and his diverse body of work.) The National Gallery is centrally located just off Merrion Square.

Tip: Stick around for a concert! Offerings range from chamber orchestra to quartets highlighting Irish composers. Many, but not all, of the concerts are free.

Planning to visit London on a budget could initially give a Cheapo a nervous breakdown. But, as documented throughout our London guide, it is possible to live it up in London on a modest budget — with a little planning.

How? Besides the obvious (choosing a budget hotel, eating cheaply, and getting around with an Oyster card), you’d be crazy not to take advantage of London’s free museums and attractions. Most of the nationally-run museums and art galleries are publicly financed and don’t cost visitors a pence. It’s a beautiful thing…

9 must-visit free museums:

British Library
British Museum
National Gallery
Natural History Museum
National Portrait Gallery
Science Museum
Tate Modern
The Tate Britain
Victoria and Albert Museum

9 notable, free museums:

Bank of London Museum
Imperial War Museum
London Political Cartoon Gallery
Museum of Garden History
Museum of London
National Maritime Museum
Petrie Museum of Egyption Archaeology
RIBA Architecture Gallery
Sir John Soane’s Museum

2 fun and free attractions:

The Changing of the Guard
The Ceremony of the Keys

More budget help for London:

• Our article on budget tips for London 
• The “London Free List” of free and nearly-free London attractions
• VisitLondon’s suggestions for free London attractions

Tourist discount cards can provide great value and a major convenience. But, they can also create a major headache when trying to evaluate their value. Today, we turn to Barcelona…

The Barcelona Card

The city-run Barcelona Turisme office issues the Barcelona Card as a two-day pass (€25), three-day pass (€30), four-day pass (€34), and five-day pass (€40). Prices are 20% cheaper for children, and all passes booked in advance on the official website receive a 10% discount.

Benefits of the card are varied. Pass holders enjoy, among other things:

• Free public transportation throughout most of Barcelona (including the airport train).
• Free admission to 12 museums, and reduced admission (50%-10% off) to another 20 museums.
• Various other discounts, ranging from 10% to 35% off at cultural, entertainment, leisure, and nightlife spots.

Is the card a good deal?

Well, it’s complicated. We fired up our old Commodore 64, tapped out some quick algebra equations and came to this conclusion: The card isn’t for us.

Quite simply, most of the museums offering free admission with the card are not on our list of “must visits,” or, if they are, they’re already pretty cheap. (For example, the Botanical Garden only costs €3.50 full-price.) Most of the museums that we’re certain to visit offer only discounts. (For example, the Picasso Museum is 50% off €9, the chocolate museum is 30% off €3.90, and three major art museums are only 20% off their admission charges of €6-8.50). Other non-museum discounts would just get lost in the shuffle (although we appreciated the 20% discount offered by the Michael Collins Irish Bar).

The transportation savings, however, could make the card a deal. If you were already going to purchase a three-day city transit pass for €13.70, you could upgrade to the Barcelona Card three-day pass for €30, which would include the transit pass. Is it worth the addition €16.30? Perhaps, if you take advantage of the 12 free museums. You decide.

After all the calculations, we had stressed ourselves out trying to make it work. That’s no way to spend a vacation.

A better option: The articketBCN

We prefer the cheaper (and less-stressful) articketBCN, which offers free admission to six major art museums in Barcelona for €20 and is valid for six months.

Museums include the Museu Picasso, Fundacio Caixa Catalunya, Fundacio Antoni Tapies, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), CCCB, MNAC, and Fundacio Joan Miro. Tickets may be purchased at any of the museums or at the tourist information center. We’d combine our articket with a T-10 pass transit book of 10 rides on the Metro or bus for €6.90.

And then we’d chill out and enjoy some art!

If you’ve ever visited the fabulous Uffizi museum in Florence, you probably know that your first hour (or two) there can often be spent waiting in a long, slow ticket line. And, that’s if you’re lucky. After all, the museum puts a daily cap on total entrants, so if you arrive on really busy days or after lunch, you can find yourself without a ticket at all!

Enter the sleek new website of the “Polo Museale Fiorentino,” the city’s governing board for 20 museums, including the Uffizi, the Accademia, the Pitti Palace, the Museum of San Marco, and more. On the site, you can take virtual tours of each museum, read about upcoming exhibits, verify opening hours, and map out locations.

But our favorite feature: The site now offers online ticket booking for all museums, allowing users to bypass the long queue and restricted entrance schedule.

How it works

The process is simple: You choose the museum you wish to book, pick a date, and then select an available entrance time. (At the Uffizi, for example, you may choose entrances in 15-minute intervals.) Proceed to the checkout, pay with a credit card (a €3 processing fee is added), and a confirmation will be emailed to you. Take this email with you to the museum (arriving, of course, during the scheduled time slot) and hand it over at the “pre-booked tickets” counter to pick up your tickets.

Yes, the site adds a €3 booking fee. But we’ll happily fork that over in exchange for a speedy (and guaranteed!) welcome.

Other museum ticket booking websites are out there, and we’ve recommended them in the past, but they tack on far more than €3 to your ticket. One of the most popular sites adds €11.50 to each ticket! Save it for post-museum Chianti, folks!

Denmark, home to Hans Christian Andersen and all those friendly, tall—and it must be said—great Danes, was recently proclaimed the happiest place on earth. In a number of population studies, pollsters asked residents to rate their level of happiness and other factors, and it seems the Danes have a real twist for felicity.

All this happiness, in spite of high taxes and hefty price tags? After all, according to the Big Mac Index, a Happy Meal must cost at least $5 in Copenhagen! Yet we agree: Denmark is a happy (and happening) place!

Here are five of our favorite and free ways to boost your serotonin in Copenhagen:

1) Get cultured 

In 2006, the National Museum and the Statens Museum of Kunst became free to the public. And, every Wednesday, a number of other major museums and galleries open their doors without a charge. We suggest the Tøjhusmuseet, where the relics of the Royal Danish Arsenal are housed, and the Hirschsprungske and Ordrupgaard Collections, two museums with some of the best French and Danish art from the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. For more info and to browse current exhibitions, go to the Copenhagen Tourism’s art museum page.

2) Park yourself

Copenhagen has some of the most expansive and pretty parks in Europe. Retreats like Orsteds Park, Frederiksberg Garden or Vondelpark are free to enter and stroll. Both have incredible sculptures and fountains and a host of traveling street performers. We also recommend the Botanical Gardens.

3) Get thee to church

Seriously, not only are Copenhagen’s many religious establishments architectural marvels, but they’re free to visit, and often host free concerts. Some charge a nominal fee for truly spectacular shows, like the Danish boys choir Christmas concert at the Church of Our Lady (Vor Frue Kirke), founded in 1209.

4) Grab a bike without paying

Yes, it’s that easy. You see a bike. You need a bike? You take the bike and ride it. A minimal deposit (about $3) gets returned when you bring the bike back to any number of designated spots. The promotion runs annually from May 1st to December 15th. More info can be found here.

5) See the statues

Go for a walk near the Copenhagen harbor, and spend some time gazing at the Little Mermaid. (She can’t charge you a krone to check out her scales.) Near City Hall, visit with Hans Christian Andersen. Later, walk the stone path at the Thorvaldsens museum in Slotsholmen.

Whatever you do, take lots of photos… or take brochures. After all, they’re free!

The cult of Che Guevara gets a boost this week as special events across Europe commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the revolutionary’s untimely death in Bolivia on October 9, 1967. In Derry in Ireland, a week of celebrations will include the unveiling on Saturday of a new mural of Che – complementing the long standing Che Guevara mural a little further up the Foyle valley in Strabane.

Che Guevara stock remains as high as ever among European socialists, not least in Andalucía (southern Spain) where knotty issues surrounding land tenure are still a popular grievance in some agricultural communities. Stop off in Marinaleda, just forty miles southwest of Córdoba, to catch the feel of a small town that has a passion for combative action against absentee landlords. A spark of revolutionary zeal permeates the town and is reflected in graffiti, street names and murals.

Other European socialist thinkers and politicians still mould the travel plans of more politically engaged travellers. There are larger than life figures of Lenin all across Europe (from Spitsbergen to St Petersburg) and even Stalin is eulogised in a new museum in Volgograd – and of course, in his home town of Gori in Georgia where a huge statue of Uncle Jo stands in the town’s main square.

Predictably Ulyanovsk, where Lenin lived as a kid, plays the Lenin card very strongly, but affection for Lenin is not just confined to Russia. There are good Lenin museums at Ulyanovsk, at Shushenskoye (where Lenin lived in exile and was married) and at Tampere in Finland.

The socialist flame has not been totally extinguished. Hasta la victoria siempre!

This is the third in a series of fortnightly blog posts by the editors of hidden europe.

Photo by oliviagiovetti

If you’re in Prague on Saturday, June 16, don’t spend your day museum-hopping. Wait until 7 p.m., when the bulk of the city’s museums and galleries will waive admission as part of Prague’s Museum Night.

In its fourth year, Prague’s Museum Night is part of a European movement to make art open, accessible, and (best of all) free. The only two museums not offering free admission are asking for “symbolic admission”: the Museum of the City of Prague is charging CZK1 (€.04; $.05), while the City Gallery Prague is asking for CZK10 (€.35; $.47) per entrant. If you’re completely strapped for crowns, don’t fret. There are over 15 other museums and galleries to keep you busy.

Transportation between museums will also be free. A handful of other cultural events and exhibitions will complement the evening’s festivities. So if you’ve ever found yourself jonesing for a Cinderella, stroke-of-midnight moment at Prague Castle, June 16 is your chance.

Photo by pnoid00

On June 23, Budapest will hold its third Night of Museums to celebrate St John’s Midsummer Night. Traditionally, this is the night when fires are kept burning for unmarried girls to jump over and so guarantee themselves a husband, and fruit is thrown into the fire to guarantee a good harvest.

Torches and candles will be lit and fire-blowers will perform outside the National Museum—one of 29 museums and public collections taking part in this year’s Night of Museums. All 29 places will stay open from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. and will host special programs, concerts, and dance performances in addition to their usual exhibitions. In previous years, some venues have been known to offer a snack and a glass of wine—or a hot chocolate. But the highlight of the night has to be the special show of erotic Roman artifacts at the Aquincum Museum!

The night is marvellous fun and a paradise for Cheapos. Free buses transport culture hounds to museums, departing from Erzsébet Tér every 30 minutes. Tickets for all events can be bought from the Budapest Transport Company (BKV) for HUF500 (€1.95; $2.65). For details of exhibitions and programs, check out the night’s schedule.

Photo by eks

A former flour mill, the Kampa Museum is, arguably we suppose, the highlight of Kampa Park. From the museum, bankside views of the Vltava are far less crowded than they are from the Charles Bridge. Plenty of trees offer shade for an afternoon nap or a perch from which the over-priced gelato sold at the kiosk just outside of the park’s entrance can be enjoyed.

Additionally, the cafe adjacent to the museum offers reasonably-priced wines, beers, and nibbles for riverside dining. Stop in after enjoying what is one of the best free art experiences in the city. Its roster includes Yoko Ono and Christo, and the lobby exhibitions are free—as is the entire museum on Mondays. Adults pay CZK 200 (€7; $9.40) and students and seniors pay a mere CZK100 (€3.50; $4.70) to see the both the permanent and František Kupka-Piet Mondrian exhibitions.

One of the coolest things about the Kampa just now is Julian Opie’s “Walking on the Vltava,” which includes two LED figures named Bruce and Suzanne walking outside on the river proper. A canal runs through the museum’s clear floor, and into the courtyard, allowing museum-goers to have their own Jesus moment.