Automotive & Radio Museum Villach

Enough of enormous panoramic views over nature, sightseeing, and sunbathing now it’s time for some history! And you know I’m not into the “common” things!

So I checked the map to look for any interesting results and the musem exhibiting vehicles of all kinds, radios, phones and watches really caught my eye!

It is quite difficult to get there, because no info pages mention a particular GPS location nor coordinates, so either you ask the first person you see or you’ll end up like me, straying in some kind of Villach suburbs between old vintage houses with rich exemplary gardens. So yes. I definitely recommend to ask a local.

When you get there, you might be surprised about the timetable. It’s open each day from 10am to 12am and from 2pm to 4pm. The specialists recommend to stay up to 3 hours in there to truly enjoy all the exhibits (it’s even stated by the cash desk) what I found quite interesting due to fact that it’s open only for two hours and the amount of items shown there is that big, that you’d definitely forget what you’ve seen before and you wouldn’t be able to continue. Nevermind.

Behind the cassa sit the owners – an elderly couple, direct owners of this vast collection. They’re both very nice, willing to communicate with anyone albeit you don’t speak German and they don’t speak English.

The museum tells the story of the 1950s motorisation dreams. Right by the entrance door you’ll spot an old golden register, and let me tell you how impressive is that!!

And right behind…wow. I’d never say one single person, or one couple to be exact, is able to create such collection! On the left is a museum of watchesand the radio and phone museum is located on the ﬁrst ﬂoor. Vehicles on the ground floor are everyday vintage cars, and the museum has 260 of them, all manufactured between 1927 and 1990! Cars, motorbikes, even some kind of armoured car – a panzer is exhibited there! And on the first floor you’ll find all kinds of telecommunication means from the same era. Various types of landline and video games (tamagotchi), too!

Next to all the vehicles you’ll find a PR code and you can find information about them for free on the internet. Nothing for me, really. But that first floor, on the other hand… what a nostalgia! Majority of items I knew only from the old Russian socialist books my grandma used to give me to read when I was little (I didn’t attend kindergarten, I was literally devoured into reading since I was like 3 years old so most of the time I was at home and basically my entire childhood I spent reading books that were all at least 10 years older than me. No surprise that I’m devoured into history of 20th century now, I’ve got really good grounding for that 😀 ), but some of them I recognised from my early childhood! Like those first mobile phones, video games, nintendos etc. Loved it!

The museum also offers an all-day ﬁve-o’clock tea with juke box and hits from the wild rock’n’roll era. Unfortunately that time isn’t the whole museum open neither, so (following my complaint in the fourth para) you just can’t follow the recommendations no matter what!