Museu Militar de Menorca

The heavy anti-aircraft guns stand in rooms that look too small to have taken them, and the question of how they were got in there stays with you round the rest of the museum. Among the uniforms and the gun cases there is a monkey riding a goat. Keep going down: below the display floors a recovered length of catacombs and an air-raid shelter open out, cool and still after the rooms above. The written history is thorough — maps, photographs and documents on the defence of the port, the forts around it and the town of Es Castell itself — and enough of it is in English to follow the whole thread.

• A midweek museum — it opens on three mornings a week and closes at lunchtime, so it has to sit in the first half of the day.
• Bring a coin — a donation box stands on the front desk by the entrance.
• Allow a couple of hours — the labels, maps and documents carry most of the content, and enough of it is in English to follow.
• Stairs below — the catacombs and the shelter are reached by stairs, and there is no step-free way down to them.
• Museum before forts — it sets out the history of the harbour and the town, and the fortifications read better afterwards.

The museum sits on the main square of Es Castell, at the entrance to the harbour of Maó. There is no approach walk — the door is off the square. Two car parks lie about 120 m away in a straight line, and the nearest bus stop, Esglèsia des Castell, is about 190 m off; Fontanelles is about 430 m. Public toilets are about 130 m away and a drinking water point about 74 m. Inside, the display rooms are on the flat, and the catacombs and shelter below are reached by stairs.

Best: a midweek morning, and a wet one for preference — this is one of the few things in Es Castell that works in rain, and the lower level stays cool when the town is baking in August.

Avoid: the weekend and the start of the week, when the museum is shut, and the last half hour before closing, which is not enough time for the written material.

The opening window is short and falls mid-week, so the rest of the morning has to fit around it.