Natural History Museum (featuring Dinosaurs)

Sarah was at work today so I took the opportunity to become a tourist and check out a museum. My initial plan was to go to the Science Museum, but as I left the tube it quickly became clear (based on the thousands of children dragging parents or vice-versa) that it was the start of the school holidays.

In the hope of missing the crowds I instead headed to the Natural History Museum, since this appeared to be where the smallest tributary from the river of people flowing through the subway was heading. I hadn't reckoned on one thing - DINOSAURS! It was the first time I've ever queued to enter a museum, but the queue gave me an opportunity to check out the fantastic architecture from the outside...people would come to see this building if it were empty...

The outside of the museum, as seen from the queue

The grand hall of the museum

Actually in the end it was great going when school holidays were on, as the museum (or at least the Dinosaur exhibit) was full of enthusiastic patrons. Most of them were having conversations that went along the lines of:

Dad: "Look at that T-Rex, isn't he scary!"
Kid: "Daaaad, that's an Iguanadon. He's not scary at all. Duhhh"*

*[For those readers who aren't 8 year old boys and thus can't quote every detail about every dinosaur, an Iguanadon (top) is a plant-eater, has a (relatively) small head and no sharp teeth, and looks only a little like a T-Rex, which is scarier again than the Allosaur pictured below.]

They have done a fantastic job of pulling together more fossils than I've ever seen, and I'd thoroughly recommend it for the Dinosaur display alone (if you're into that sort of thing).

But that was only a small fragment of what the museum had on offer, with a real mix of 'modern'-style exhibits aimed at today's multimedia generation and some of the classic 'rows of objects in chests'.

A more traditional display (note again the architecture)

In short, not for everyone, but if you like museums it was probably for you...