South Tyrol Archeological Museum

One body, three floors. Ötzi turned up by accident in 1991, high in the Alps in the Schnalstal valley, and the museum is built around him from the ground up: the ground floor tells the story of the find, the first floor holds the chilled chamber where he lies, along with his clothing and everyday kit, and the floor above hands the whole thing to the scientists — reconstructions, analyses, questions still open. He is more than 5,000 years old and in remarkable condition for it. The building was a bank in 1912 and still looks like one from the street.

• No photography inside the exhibition — the ban is there to protect the finds from degradation.
• Baggage storage is available at the museum, useful if you arrive with luggage in hand.
• The bookshop carries well-chosen titles in several languages.
• Drinking water is free from a public fountain about 15 metres from the door; tourist information is roughly 400 metres away.

The museum stands on the pedestrian street through Bolzano's old town, so the last stretch is done on foot whatever brought you into town — no vehicle comes up to the entrance. The bus stops and the car parks all lie within a couple of hundred metres of the door, and the walk in runs through the old town. The way in is the street front of the former bank building itself; the route through the exhibition starts on the ground floor and climbs.

Better: a visit with two clear hours in hand.

Avoid: arriving close to closing time.

The route runs in a fixed sequence, floor by floor, and the panels carry a great deal of reading. One visitor arrived expecting to spend an hour and stayed two; another read every panel on the way round and lost the afternoon to it.