Last Sunday, we knocked another item off the bucket list by visiting the National Archaeological Museum.

This museum is bypassed by most tourists—as are most of the museums in Warsaw. This is at least partly due to there being no regularly updated central source of information in English on them as there is in Vienna. (I could write a whole blog post about how Warsaw seriously needs to step up its publicity game in this regard, but anyway…)

It’s too bad, because the archaeological museum has a small, but very nice collection of artifacts, all collected from within Poland, or former Polish territories. While the displays are simple, they are immaculately maintained and accompanied by descriptions in near-perfect English: no Google Translate in use here!

The painstakingly assembled dioramas of prehistoric and medieval settlements may be old-fashioned, but I could see that the kids in attendance were totally fascinated by them. They were displayed on low tables for that reason, I am sure. Children are always accommodated in Polish museums.

Unsurprisingly, a lot of the items have to do with graves or burial. These funerary urns with faces on them were used to bury cremated remains. An entire display of them is quite spooky.

After the docents made sure we headed upstairs (otherwise I am sure we would have missed it–sometimes the Eastern European museum docent herding instinct is useful) we found a pretty cool exhibit on Romanesque architecture and life during that period. Again, everything was perfectly translated into English.

So, another museum visited on a gray Sunday. The Archaeological Museum is happily located very near my favorite Thai restaurant in Warsaw. I recommend both.