If you’re ever stuck on what to do on a rainy sunday, here’s an idea: how about visiting a museum? It’s inexpensive (some are even free), informative and fun, so pick something that interests you, look for a museum on it and check it out. Something that I love is travel, and I’ve travelled through quite a few countries in a caravan (Sweden, Norway, the UK, Italy, Slovenia and Croatia, just to name a couple), so last sunday I decided to visit the Erwin Hymer Museum in Bad Walsee, Baden-Württemberg.
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| The first thing you notice is the amazing architecture of the building. |
The Hymer Museum showcases not only vintage Hymer RVs and caravans, but old mobile homes of other brands as well. Many of the caravans are attached to old-timers, making the museum attractive for car and travel enthusiasts alike.
My favorite part of the museum, however, isn’t the caravans or cars or RVs, but the way it showcases different countries and cultures. The museum is broken up into several different sections: when you come in, the first thing you do is go on a tour through the alps, complete with cowbells to ring and a giant wall mural.
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| I was in love with the colors and the little lace curtains of this one. You can see a bit of the mural in the background. |
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| A better shot of the mural |
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| This was the CUTEST CAMPER EVER. The color is gorgeous, and the rooftop thing? Dying. |
The next section is Italy, and this is where the real fun of the museum starts: Photo booths. There’s a backdrop, a bunch of cool accessories and a camera which you stick your ticket into that takes a picture for you. There are four different photo stations throughout the museum, and when you’ve taken all your pictures, you can go to the front desk and buy a postcard with all four pictures on it as a souvenir.
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| Trying to tie a Sari for the India photo. |
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| India is super high up on my bucket list anyways, and seeing this ratty VW bus filled with trinkets and souvenirs just made me want to steal and ride off with it. |
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| Being cowgirls & indians at the North America photo station. Stereotypical, yes, but still fun. |
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| This is actually my favorite picture from that day. Just chilling at the beach in the south of France. |
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| At home with the (slightly blurry) postcard. It's such a nice souvenir from a great day. |
In the Italy, India, the North Sea, Morocco, North America and France sections, there were giant booths set up that you could enter that simulated some of the sights, sounds and smells from the respective regions. In the Italy tent for example, you can sit in lounge chairs and listen to the sound of the waves whilst watching surfers on a giant screen. In Morocco, you smell foreign spices and see the people of Marrakech passing by as you sit on squishy embellished sofas. The North America tent lets you sit in a saddle and watch cowboys rounding up cattle. It allows you to transport yourself into a completely different part of the world for free, and awakens a lot of wanderlust (I, for example, am now dying to visit northern Africa).
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| Getting ready to take the North America photo, with the respective tent in the background. |
When we were all done, we had a drink and a piece of cake in the museum café before heading back home. Even that had a beautifully clean design, and the cake was homemade and delicious.
I thoroughly enjoyed myself and had a great day. The Hymer Museum is definitely a place worth a visit for anyone passionate about travel, camping, or just taking silly photos.
