Opole – Muzeum Wsi Opolskiej (this went a bit wrong)

I had a great plan for today, I was going to walk to Muzeum Wsi Opolskiej, which is an open air museum. These are some of my favourite museums, I loved Den Gamle By in Aarhus and also Weald & Downland in West Sussex. The photo above shows where I wanted to go, it’s about a four mile walk from the hotel (the museum is the red circle, the hotel is the blue circle).

So, off I go. Most people would have got the bus or a taxi, but I’m far too tight for that. And I like walking, with four miles not being far really.

Then I find a problem. I get really near to the museum and the roundabout was shut to pedestrians. I think the construction engineer was telling me in Polish that it re-opened later, but other people were turning around, so I didn’t progress that plan. I have on good authority that anyone senior in civil engineering sits inside drinking tea and I didn’t want to disturb them.

I didn’t worry too much about this obstacle as I had already come up with another plan. It was to walk up to the nearly parallel road, going by the left of Sephora Karolinka and then onto the road to the north of the museum, before walking back around.

I was very pleased with myself about this little plan, even though that was an extra twenty miles of walking each way. Google seemed confident of this route, although it hadn’t been entirely accurate throughout the morning if I’m being honest, so off I merrily plodded. The road I wanted was a little country lane, I checked it on Google Streetview. It looked quite quaint, so I thought that some countryside walking would be nice.

And then I get to this little quaint country road. It has been replaced by a wider tarmac road, which goes underneath some major new road, which Google didn’t tell me about. And this tarmac road was shut to cars, pedestrians and bikes.

So, I wasn’t best pleased about this arrangement. I was half tempted to get a taxi for what would have been a two-minute ride, but I don’t like getting taxis as they’re a faff. What I did have was an eight mile round-trip around the Polish countryside, nearly all of which was very lovely.

However, perhaps it was just meant to be. Just I got back into the centre of Opole, it poured with rain, so I would have got soaked walking around the open air museum and then walking back. Fate is sometimes a marvellous thing. I must say though, the museum reviews are excellent, but it seems they’re struggling with visitor numbers. I can’t imagine many people walk to the museum, but things like this can’t help their numbers…..