To get bored in museums?

[justnotaballetmum]

I have been away with DH and the children for a week and amongst other things we spent some time in museums.

I found it quite boring Don't get me wrong - it wasn't as if I wasn't interested in anything but where I could have moved through an entire section in less than two minutes, DH could spend an age on it, up to fifteen minutes. It meant I was standing around a lot! I tried, genuinely, to 'see what he was seeing' and fervently read every section about every stone but I still couldn't manage it.

So - AIBU to get a bit bored and restless in museums, and AIBU to think I might be a bit of an uneducated fool?

I like museums and learning new things, but I can speed read and like to pick out bits that interest me. I could never spend hours reading every display and taking in every exhibit. DH is the opposite as is DC1, fortunately DC2 is like me so when we were younger I have a reason/excuse to get through quickly, now we all go at our own pace and meet up at the end or in a cafe which is perfect

Ooh Yanbu! I am bored to tears at museums except maybe for science museums. Thought I was the only one

LisaMumsnet You made the right choice in Barcelona - the Miro museum was in beautiful scenery but most of the famous Miro paintings weren't there, so MrNC still thinks Miro is shit and I really couldn't argue! Still had time for tapas, though.

I can enjoy most museums for half an hour (unless it's steam trains or white marble), and the kids will usually enjoy themselves for about that long if there's an icecream offered later. I treat trips with the kids as scouting expeditions for what to see when I'm alone. Finally managed four hours by myself in the V&A glassware section... bliss!

Just waiting for the Toaster Museum to pop up.

It depends. Are they museums about things that interest you? I like small local museums about the history of a place and its people. Hate stately homes and loathe art galleries. I lasted twenty minutes in the louvre.

I like toy museums and I really enjoyed browsing through Sandringham estate ( obviously not a museum but everything was roped off/ behind glass), but then I do like nosing round people's houses!
We had to take dd2 to a museum for a homework project and it was pretty boring, it's not really much fun looking at things behind glass, we were probably there for half an hour tops!. We went back to the same museum for a school trip, and it was so much better as they had character actors in the different exhibit rooms, we spent a day there and it was so much better with guides.

But why go to the Louvre at all, if you already know you'll be longer in the queue than inside, and all you're going to do is take a quick look at the Mona Lisa (which is, absolutely, deeply unspectactular, especially when viewed through bullet proof glass and over the heads of two hundred tourists with selfie sticks)? If you don't really enjoy art museums, then the Louvre is a giant hellhole full of broken statues and brownish 17thc landscapes.

I adore art museums, and will dedicate huge chunks of any holiday to staring myself happily blind at paintings, and even I think the Louvre is exhausting and tiring and overcrowded. And people who are bored to death queue for hours and pay money to go in and be bored - why, any more than I would pay money to go to a premier league match and die of boredom?

I like museums - I was taken to lots of museums as a child, and I was a junior member of my local museum. I still go to lots of museums, I've done voluntary work in a museum, and my weekends and trips away from home are often centred around museums.

But I don't want everyone else to feel as I do - I hate overcrowded galleries, so I don't want everyone to visit. In any case, it would be very dull if we all liked the same things - there are plenty of things I don't enjoy doing.

The museum of broken relationships in Zagreb. It's the only museum I've stayed in longer than DH , and he loved it too.

Otherwise v early on in our relationship I said 'if you lose me I'll be in the tea shop. It works fine.

Japan I had never heard of that one before. It looks really interesting.

The museum on Ellis Island in New York is fab with all the immigrants stories in (relatively) recent history. Most museums I can move through pretty quickly

The natural history museum woukd be my worst nightmare come true.

Depends on the museum surely?

There are museums that DH loves but I find dull as dishwater and vice versa. The best way to do them is to split up and meet at intervals. I spent a good portion of our recent visit to a train museum drinking tea and eating cake in the cafe rather than looking at yet another train

I did find the pencil museum in Keswick much more interesting than I'd expected.

LisaMumsNet gives excellent advice. I love museums but for me they have to be the 'right' museums, DCs have inherited my preference. We only go to the museums/exhibitions that interest us and plan in cake stops. DH absolutely needs to read every single thing several times and sucks the joy out of a museum visit for us. We have reached a mutually agreeable compromise; we do most visits without him and when he joins us we see what we want to see and retire to the coffee shop and scoff cake until he joins us - perfection.

<a class="break-all" href="//\www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/the-sacred-made-real" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">This was one of the most memorable exhibitions I went to.

Carvings made from pine with glass, ivory, horn and hair three or four hundred years ago that were so skilled and detailed that they looked real in the present day. They were made be people who preferred to be called craftsmen rather than artists.

But it wasn't just the workmanship that was fascinating but also the faith and mysticism and fear. It was the time of the Inquisition - imagine walking into a darkened crypt and being confronted by what appeared to be the martyred body of Christ.

Six years ago and I'm still going on about it. I love stuff like that. But if you don't, then do something else and meet up after.

I messed it up. I think this is the link

Yanbu. I worked in museums until becoming a sahm and I oversaw a lot of visitor research. It's fascinating to look at different attitudes to museums, different behaviours, etc. Much of it boils down to your own style of learning and absorbing information. But often I found that the length of time spent in the museum or a gallery had little to do with how much information a visitor took in. It also had zero to do with visitor satisfaction; visitors who spent considerably more time did not report being more satisfied or interested. Museums these days often put a great deal of work to ensure that visitors can follow an exhibition in the way that feels right and intuitive to them, with it still making sense, whilst providing a suggested route for those that prefer a more linear, prescribed experience. I know historians and curators who aren't terribly fussed on visiting museums, or reading every word on every panel. Lisamumsnet has given some great advice.

Well, I am reassured. I honestly thought that it was just me!

Cathedrals and churches are something I don't 'get'. Anyone else?

Cathedrals and churches make me come over all goose-pimply. I have been known to cry. I'm an atheist, so I am quite baffled by this response! I love them though.

I like museums, but you certainly aren't unreasonable to get bored in them. I hate romantic art (the stupid unrealistic potato faces, soulless eyes, and chubby-in-the-wrong-places bodies freak me out) and can't stomach most art galleries for more than 10 minutes. Modern art I can cope with though, unless it's something stupid that is a toilet, not a piece of art.

I was going to be all judgy but if I'm really honest the best bit is always the cafe and the gift shop.

See also National Trust/English Heritage places, art galleries etc.

Lol at "potato faces"

I was surprised and disappointed at how small the Mona Lisa is.
Don't see the need to spend a lot of time in museums. See what you want, visit the cafe, and leave.

The Sex museum in Amsterdam isn't too bad
I hate old portraits in art galleries. They all look the same.

I could spend days in a museum (and have done, took me 6 days to get through the Louvre). I can sit in front of a piece of ancient artwork for ages and just get lost in it. My first degree was in ancient history, so I start thinking about the culture, the people who would have made it. My ex hated them. We compromised by him going off to do something else that he loved and would have bored me. That way everyone was happy.

But don't make me go to a modern art exhibition. I'll happily look at interesting artwork, but the piece that was nothing but cable ties stuck together was not what I would call art. I can make a mess like that just trying to tie the dog crates together for a flight.