We were in London during a heat wave and decided a museum day was in order, to entertain our…read morechildren away from the scorching sun. We settled on the Natural History Museum, and by the time we realized it would provide but faint relief, it was too late to go somewhere else.
The Natural History Museum is one of London's spectacular free museums, a beautiful building on Exhibition Road in South Kensington. We were not, apparently, the only family who decided to visit on this hot Thursday afternoon in July, and we ended up waiting in a long, slow line, completely exposed to the sun. They might have put up some umbrellas, but I guess the weather was atypical. Once we were in, we learned that the museum is an old, historic building without much in the way of air conditioning. It was crowded and steamy in there, though still preferable to being outside. There were also a few newer exhibition halls that had proper AC.
Thankfully, my three-year-old has a lifelong fascination with fans, and there were dozens of these on display, giant machines designed to ventilate large spaces. He was, in fact, more into these than he was into the dinosaurs, which scared the bejeezus out of him.
The museum was definitely top tier, with tons of interesting exhibits to entertain both children and adults. We entered right into Hintze Hall, where a full blue whale skeleton hung suspended over our heads. We also admired a 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite, dating back to the beginning of our solar system.
The dinosaur hall was excellent, even if the animatronic T-rex made my little boy cry. We fell prey to one of the photo op stops, and I definitely paid for the downloads like a sucker--what, was I not gonna own the silly green screen pictures of my family among dinosaurs, and more importantly, looking at a camera at the same time?
The mammal hall was cool, though I have to say, I missed the grand diorama displays of the mammal halls I've seen back home. We went into a newer exhibit on how to fix our broken planet, mostly for the air conditioning. My kids were less into the conservation stuff than the dinosaurs and fans, but I thought it was quite well done. I actually stopped buying beef treats for my dog as a result of one of the placards, which talked about the impact on the planet of using beef for pet food.
We went to two gift shops, the one by the dinosaur hall and the main one near the entrance, and both were quite nice, with lots to look at for our kids. We allowed them to buy stuffies, and our three-year-old bought a tiny dodo and a tiny ankylosaurus (on theme, good job), while our six-year-old bought a flamingo to add to his flamingo collection. If there was a flamingo display at the museum, we missed it, though I suppose I wouldn't be surprised. I can tell by looking at the map now that we missed plenty.
We spent a little time in the cafe, for fans and beverages, and I realized as we were leaving that I'd left my sunglasses there over an hour earlier. I was pleasantly surprised to find it at the register waiting for me.
We take the kids to natural history museums at home, and I have no doubt we'd make good use of this one if we were raising them nearby. It's a wonderful place, expansive and educational, a truly amazing free resource to anyone spending time in London.
