Recommendation for scientifically-inclined geeks in northwestern Europe?

If you want to zip down to Geneva, I highly recommend a tour of CERN. We did it this summer and were amazed! Make reservations in advance because they do run out of spaces.

Deutsche Museum in Munich
CERN
Bletchley Park north of London
Visit Switzerland to see how a country can generate virtually all its electricity from water with zero emissions.
Visit France to see how a country can generate virtually all its electricity from Nuclear technology.
Thames Flood Barrier east of London
Many different museums in the Netherlands for polder creation and protection, and the flood barrier systems in the southwest of the Netherlands.
Maastricht.

The list is huge given the large playing field you are on.

Remember to keep your stay in the Schengen countries to less than 90 days if you are not on specific other visa or visa waiver programs.

Two that came to mind were the previously mentioned museum in Munich and the Galileo museum outside of Florence. Maybe the Greenwich Observatory would be another good choice.

The Mercedes Museum in Stuttgart. It was really cool to see the development of the Automobile. I am not really a car person, but the museum was really well done.

There's also a major flood barrier installation in the Southwest Netherlands, and much lesser barriers in Rotterdam. You might look into which Max Planck Institute network facilities give tours. I can't put my finger on it, but I recall that there's a really important research center just south of Lake Konstanz - maybe in Switzerland?, that is partly open to the public. I always wanted to visit the, modest, Karl Zeiss Museum in Jena, (East) Germany, but never got around to it. Consider also the Vitra Design Museum and architecture tour (advance tickets req'd) in Weil am Rhein, Germany, just across from Basel. It would be a shame to miss all the history to be seen, in a rush to see science!

Does the history of industrial engineering count? How about the ironworks at Völklingen in Germany's Saarland, probably the least touristed of the country's federal states.

Along that same line, there's the European Route of Industrial Heiritage.

For me, the most interesting part of the Zwinger complex in Dresden is the Mathematisch-Physikalischer Salon.

Both Speyer and Sinsheim in SW Germany have popular museums of science and industry.

The BMW factory tour in Munich gives you a great look at all their robot-automated technology (reserve ahead). In the same city, the new Transportation Museum was our favorite of the various Deutches Museums, and the Flugwerft Schleissheim was well worth the half-hour S-Bahn ride for airplanes and WWII history.

Never visited it but Museum Boerhaave in Leiden has a large and nice collection of scientific and medical instruments, among (one of the first) microscopes from Antoni van Leeuwenhoek and instruments from Christiaan and Constatijn Huygens if it’s of interest.
But still can remeber well the Science Museum in London if it's not too far away.

I haven't been to it yet, because it's really not that high on my list, but there is a museum of science and technology in Paris.

http://www.villette.com/en/your-visit/map/cite-sciences-industrie-universcience.htm

clairejsha,

if you have a chance and are lucky, check out the many bridges over the canals. They vary in design. I happened to come across one that was about to open since there were 2 large boats waiting.

happy trails.

Edinburgh, National Museum of Scotland--it starts on the ground floor with prehistory and goes up through to the 21st Century on the top floor. The new Riverside Museum in Glasgow has the artifacts from the old transport museum and more in a new building on the Clyde designed by Zaha Hadid.

And if you are at all interested in geology, well as the site says, Scotland is the home of geology. You can see it in the countryside. Everything from the Cuillin Mountains on Skye to glaciated valley (Glens) to fossils on the Black Isle to the Great Glen Fault, they have it all.

Pam

Hi,

If you're willing to go further south than NW Europe, I suggest going to Wetzlar, assuming you're into optics too. See the Zeiss Museum there and, if you're interested Goethe's House/Museum too.

Musee des Arts et Metiers in Paris. It is France's national museum of scientific and industrial instruments. Went there because it was close to our apartment and to buy museum passes at an "off the radar sight" to avoid lines. A pleasant surprise.

In the big park located north of northeast Paris is the big and great museum of science : Cite' des Sciences et de l' industrie. Plan for one whole day there.

Rotterdam invites gearheads with a naval bent. The massive harbour, one of the world's biggest both in area and volume of shipping, can be toured by excursion boat. The maritimes museum is moderately interesting and the adjacent harbour collection of specialized boats is swell to poke around.
http://www.maritiemmuseum.nl/website/index.cfm?fuseaction=tentoon.digest&lang=engels
The centre of the city is an on-going workshop of postwar urban redevelopment, like a playpen full of experimental building designs.

If you make it to Hamburg, the Miniatur Wunderland would be fun. Not exactly CERN, but fun ;-)