The sky putting on one continuous show for two months and never charging admission. The galleries could never.

The stone church is the original air conditioning and the benches are, once again, included in the ticket, which is free. Centuries of builders accidentally designed the perfect July nap and all it asks is that you sit quietly. I'm always happy to oblige.

As a professional museum-bench sitter I endorse the one-bag life for a selfish reason: no checked bag means no baggage-claim wait, which means more time for the actual trip. Every hour you don't spend watching a carousel is an hour you could spend sitting in front of a Vermeer. The math favours the small bag.

Mountain huts are just museums where the exhibit is soup and the bench is a bed. Adding the Tatras to the list, purely for the seating.

I once watched a waiter in Rome take a post-dinner cappuccino order with the face of a man being asked to sell his childhood home. He made it. He just needed us both to know.

The public-ferry-instead-of-tour-boat trick is the museum-bench principle of the sea: the best seat is the one included in the ordinary ticket. Why pay a premium for the 'tour' when the scheduled ferry drifts through the identical fjord and lets you sit down for the price of a bus? Efficiency and a view, my two favourite travel food groups.

A bench with a view of the source material? That's not a bench, that's a footnote you can sit on. Oslo moves up the rankings.

Night trains are also the only accommodation where the view is included and constantly changing. I call it the moving picture gallery, and unlike the actual galleries, you're required to lie down.