3/5 Andy B. 7 months ago on Google • 17 reviews
In
Branicki,
there
are
lots
of
brains,
both
alive
ones
in
the
crania
of
students
and
staff,
and
dead
ones
in
jars
lining
the
shelves,
but
none
of
them
has
ever
once
been
put
towards
making
a
good
experience
for
visitors.
I
don't
expect
attractions
like
Branicki
Palace
to
bend
over
backwards
for
English-only
speakers;
I'm
there
to
appreciate
the
aesthetic
quality,
and
any
English
audioguides
or
information
boards,
if
present,
are
simply
a
bonus.
In
Branicki,
though,
it
seems
like
they
detract
rather
than
add
to
the
experience.
Because
the
Palace
is
still
in
use
as
a
medical
university,
you
are
only
given
access
with
a
guide
present;
as
such,
you
get
shepherded
around
the
few
rooms
of
the
palace
which
can
be
visited
today,
with
a
Polish
your
group.
Many
of
these
rooms
are
too
small
to
fit
everyone,
so
everyone
shuffles
about
waiting
their
turn
to
go
in
while
the
guide
talks,
and
squeezing
past
each
other
in
doorways.
The
guide
has
lots
to
say,
in
Polish,
but
none
of
it
has
been
transferred
to
the
audioguide,
which
plods
along
through
its
barebones
script
with
contagious
boredom,
speaking
as
slowly
as
possible
to
disguise
the
fact
that
almost
no
information
about
the
Palace
is
being
relayed
to
you
at
all.
Many
of
the
rooms
fail
to
display
a
number
for
the
audioguide
entry,
leaving
foreigners
to
cross-reference
it
yourself
against
the
map
you're
given
at
the
start.
(You
also
receive
the
translation
of
a
script:
at
one
point,
you
are
sat
down
and
made
to
watch
the
corresponding
video,
unsubtitled,
in
Polish,
while
the
lights
are
turned
off
leaving
you
with
no
way
to
read
the
translation.)
As
such,
the
visit
could
take
you
half
an
hour
by
yourself,
but
you're
forced
to
spend
ninety
minutes
there
in
relative
boredom.
What's
especially
saddening
is
that
almost
every
other
city
and
attraction
I
visited
in
Poland
had
audioguides
of
a
high
quality—all,
it
seemed,
utilising
the
same
narrator,
who
I
guess
couldn't
make
it
as
far
east
as
Bialystok.
All
in
all,
it's
not
a
bad
attraction,
the
building
and
the
grounds
are
very
pretty,
and
two
or
three
of
the
rooms
would
have
been
worth
visiting
under
any
other
circumstances,
but
I
don't
really
recommend
actually
going
in.
And
since
Bialystok
is
so
rarely
visited
by
foreign
tourists,
there
is
probably
little
incentive
to
change
that
in
the
future—and
Bialystok
will
remain
so
rarely
visited.
Oh,
and
they
had
a
nice
big
Lenin
painting
aptly
shoved
in
the
basement.
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