Atomic nuclei can be modelled by Skyrmions with quantised spin and isospin. Skyrmions with a realistic value of the pion mass parameter should be quite compact structures, but few examples beyond baryon number 8 are known. The largest of these is the cubic Skyrmion with baryon number 32, which is a truncated piece of the Skyrme crystal. Here, it is argued that many Skyrmions are pieces of the Skyrme crystal. Particular attention is given to cubic crystal chunks and ways to reduce the baryon number by chopping corners off. It is also argued that quantised Skyrmion states can be approximated by classically spinning Skyrmions, and the orientations of spinning Skyrmions corresponding to polarised protons, neutrons and deuterons are identified. Nuclear collisions and the nuclear spin–orbit force are discussed in terms of classically spinning Skyrmions. Going beyond the rigid collective motions of Skyrmions, there are spatially modulated collective motions, oscillatory in time, which model vibrational excitations of nuclei and also giant resonance states. A speculative proposal for identifying quarks inside Skyrmions is briefly discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.