katygriff has been thanked 2 times for this contribution
"When I was in London for the weekend I really could not resist taking a trip to the natural history museum. It is one of those places that I have always wanted to visit and my fiancé and sister felt the same way. So off we went on the tube to find out where it actually was and we had a great afternoon there. Plus considering it is free to get into and we spent four hours there and had only completed half of it I think it was well worth visiting.
So first I guess I better tell you all where it actually is in London. The address is as follows;
Natural History Museum
Cromwell Road
London
SW7 5BD
To find it was quite easy. We just got off of the tube at South Kensington and followed the road down and you can't really miss it as it is this huge impressive looking building in the middle of a very nice area. There are huge signs telling you you have found the right place and the queues were huge so I recommend getting there early. You even have your bags checked when you walk in which I think is excellent.
So when you get in there you do not have to pay a penny to get in and you are directed into this massive hall which has a massive dinosaur skeleton in the middle which looks amazing. All around this hall you will find skeletons of weird and wonderful prehistoric animals and it really is amazing to see.
I will take you through the areas of the museum that we did;
Main:
This room as I said above contains all of the skeletons which are great. There are lots of dinosaurs and prehistoric marine animals. My favourite is the giant ground sloth as it was huge and I would not like to have met it when it was alive.
Ecology:
This area tells you all about ecology and about how the world works from how the planets revolve around the sun to how recycling works and there is a lot of information to take in. The displays are impressive and there is quite a lot to read and see and watch so you should keep yourself busy. We spent around half an hour looking around and that was skipping some of it as we wanted to get to other sections.
Creepy Crawlies:
I enjoyed this part because you get to find out about why animals communicate the way they do, how the insects bite and eat and mate. There is a huge spider part which was extremely interesting and even a ant tank where you can see all of these ants carrying bits of leaves to the nest which I watched for quite a while. We read everything here and it took us about 45 minutes.
Marine:
You can see skeletons of fish and learn about how they were years ago and how they eat, communicate and show warnings to people which was good. There is even a preserved fish which was quite cool and there was a small room where you can watch a film on the marine life but we didn't really have time. We spent half hour here.
Mammals:
I really enjoyed this part as there is lots of information about so many mammals and it was amazing. They have lots of life size models of animals which is great and you even walk into this one room and there is a massive blue whale model which was brilliant. We spent an hour here and could have easily spent more to be honest.
Dinosaurs:
This was by all means my favourite part as I found it so amazing. I love dinosaurs so I was walking around astonished at how many skeletons are there and how much information you found out about them. You walk along a platform so you can see all of the hanging skeletons as they are huge and at the end you see an animatronics T-Rex which was excellent!!! The atmosphere is buzzing as everybody waits for this section and it is truly brilliant what you see.
As well as the sections mentioned above there are many that we didn't go and see. The human biology part looked great and then there was a massive section on plant life. Then at the moment there is an Antarctica exhibition which looked fun and was the only part that you had to pay for and it was £7 for an adult. From what people were saying it was very good but we just didn't have time as we were going to the theatre on the night.
There is a café at the museum which is massive and like everywhere else there is a lot to see and read there as exhibitions are all over the walls. The prices are expensive but you get so much for free that we didn't mind paying them at all. For a drink it was about £3 and about £3 for a cookie.
There are many shops at the site which you can buy souvenirs from mugs and key rings to books on archaeology. The shops looked really good and there are lots to choose from.
I think my overall opinion is that the museum is definitely worth a visit and I really would go again and probably visit everything again because I enjoyed it all that much. For free you get to see so much and so much is on offer that I don't think anybody could go there and say they hated it. There are donation boxes around which I put a little in as they really deserve it.
;)
