It was my birthday recently and, as is the case with many people who suddenly find themselves older than they felt they were, I started contemplating life and the relentless passage of time. Appropriately, amongst my presents were two tickets to the Time Travel Museum in Vienna. I know what you are thinking (maybe) and no, sadly, time travel isn’t real and this is not a museum of Doctor Who related stuff. It’s still a 400 year old monastery underneath the city and it has many cool things I wasn’t expecting.

The museum is located 12 meters under ground in a wine cellar. Considering the day I visited it was very hot, the hallways were a welcomed escape from the heat up above. The tour began with portraits of important Viennese people talking to each other. No, it’s not a Harry Potter museum either. But the Kaiserin telling Freud to stop smoking is kind of magical, right? Well, wait until the 5D cinema takes you on a ride through the different eras of the city – dinosaurs, Romans, plague, Turkish armies. That and the life-sized talking and moving royal (clockwork) robots had me saying wait, are you sure this isn’t a Doctor Who museum?

It all takes a darker turn when you get to the war years though. Standing in an actual bunker while the sirens are crying and the ground is shaking, you can very well tell yourself it isn’t real, but you also know that it recently was. And those people standing right here weren’t tourists paying to see the inside of the bunker.

Some minutes later it’s over and you can step out into the present. This time you are kind of glad it’s the present. Looking at the past sometimes does that to you.

Oh and if you plan on taking a photo at the end – in front of the green screen – learn from my boyfriend’s mistakes and don’t wear green shorts. Or, you know, wear green shorts and have big laugh about it like we did.