Ein Hod's second museum is one of the more unexpected places you will visit in Israel. The Nisco Museum houses a remarkable private collection of mechanical musical instruments — barrel organs, orchestrions, musical boxes, fairground organs, and automatic pianos — gathered over a lifetime by a passionate collector. The instruments range from pocket-sized music boxes to towering cabinet organs that fill a room with the sound of a full orchestra at the turn of a handle.
The owner typically conducts the tours himself, demonstrating each instrument and explaining its mechanism and history with visible enthusiasm. The music these machines produce has a particular quality — simultaneously nostalgic and slightly uncanny — that sticks with you. It is the kind of small, idiosyncratic museum that makes travelling worthwhile.