London on the Cheap

London is expensive, everybody knows it. But as far as a tourist visit goes, the best things in London are free! Get sturdy shoes, drink and food, a rainproof and sunglasses and let's get going.

As you proceed, you might see places, attractions and buildings that you want to return to (some will be free, some paid for), make note of those. I will point out some - especially free ones - as we go along.

We start at the centre of Royal London.

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Depending on when you are staying, take a tube or walk to Victoria. Walk up The Buckingham Palace Road to Buckingham Palace. Have a look at the guards - you might actually catch the ceremony of Changing the Guard at Buckingham Palace which takes place roughly every two days at approximately 11:15 am. It's crowded and long, but can be worth the look for the whole absurdity of the whole ornate pageant Check the schedule at http://www.changing-the-guard.com/sched.htm

Thus entertained, walk down to have a look at Queen Victoria's monument and enter St James Park. Walk along the lovely ponds in the park, all the way down to the Horse Guards Parade and cross the parade ground towards the Horse Guards building to emerge at the Whitehall. Admire more guards in more fancy hats (you can take photos with those ones, both mounted and pedestrian and walk down a little bit to have a peek at number 10 Downing Street, now sadly barriered off, where the British Prime Minister lives and holds office. Whitehall itself is the street where the heaviness of Imperial government still hangs in the air.

As you get closer to the river, you will get near the Westminster You could spend at least half a day just here, in what is one of the oldest centres of population in London (it used to be a separate settlement form the City of London) and traditionally the heart of its power. The formidable Imperial administration buildings behind you, you are now facing two of perhaps the most iconic buildings in London.

The first is Westminster Abbey, the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English monarchs and a magnificent Gothic church in itself (as well as place of burial for many other notable personages in British history and culture, from Charles Darwin to Isaac Newton, Charles Dickens to Peggy Ashcroft). You can walk round the building and round the cloisters for free, but the The Abbey itself costs 10 to enter, unless you are attending a service there, itself an interesting experience, and the choir is excellent. The schedule can be found here: http://www.westminster-abbey.org/worship/services/

The second building is the Houses of Parliament (Palace of Westminster), a magnificent neo-Gothic edifice gracing the Thames bank, with its famous Clock Tower (that's where the Big Ben is located). There are paid-for tours in the summer (when the Commons and Lord don't sit) but when the Parliament is in session, visitors can observe the proceedings from the public gallery for free. Waiting in a public queue is the only way to get access for foreign visitors (outside St Stephen's entrance, up to 2 hours waiting time), while UK residents can get tickets from their MP.

By now you have walked more than 1.5 miles and might be wanting a break, but I would urge you to go a bit further. Cross the river using the Westminster bridge and turn left on the other side. You are now on the South Bank and as you can walk along the embankment that affords a fantastic view of the opposite bank with its iconic buildings. Pass The County Hall and walk towards the London Eye. Select a bench for your stop, snack and a drink and then walk on to admire (from the outside) the biggest Ferris Wheel in the world.

As you get to Hungerford Bridge (an old Brunel rail bridge flanked by twin modern suspension footbridges commemorating the Golden Jubilee) you will be passing the large and concrete-looking but surprisingly user friendly South Bank complex, comprising the National Theatre, BFI Southbank (formerly known as the National Film Theatre), Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, The Hayward and few other spaces and venues. None of the major performances are free, but you can often catch street performers outside or free shows inside the foyers of the major spaces, especially in the lunchtime period. Venture inside, and there is plenty of leaflets and posters available that will tell you what's on.

If you have had enough, you can walk to Waterloo station from here or cross the river to Embankment (tube) & Charing Cross (tube & rail) stations.

Otherwise (or the next day, as you start from this point), potter about this surprisingly restful, traffic free area. Browse through the wares of the second-hand booksellers in front of the BFI (under the shelter afforded by the Waterloo Bridge).

London is expensive, everybody knows it. But as far as a tourist visit goes, the best things in London are free! Get sturdy shoes, drink and food, a rainproof and sunglasses and let's get going.

As you proceed, you might see places, attractions and buildings that you want to return to (some will be free, some paid for), make note of those. I will point out some - especially free ones - as we go along.

We are now closer to the oldest part of the city. Take a tube to Waterloo and walk to the river.

We are still on the South bank of the Thames, and as you walk the relatively uneventful bit between Waterloo and Blackfriars bridges, you can see the panorama on the opposite bank changing. The City, with its mixture of old churches dotted in the sea of 19th century and very modern office buildings is looming. St Paul's becomes visible quite near and the Nat west tower and Gherkin feature clearly in the skyline.

As you cross under the Blackfriars bridge, you will clearly see the stark building that used to be a power station and now houses one of the temples of modern art, The Tate Modern. As most major museums in the capital of the UK, this one is free of charge and eminently worth visiting: if you like modern art, you will be back for a longer tour not preceded by a 3 mile walk, if you don't like modern art, still walk in and have a look at least at the Turbine Hall, usually full of some giant installation of exhibit and an awe-inducing space by itself

Tate Modern is a good point to break the tour, especially if you spent any time inside. The nearest tube station is Southwark (further south) or Blackfriars (over the bridge).

Before you go, though, have a look 150 yards on at the modern reconstruction of the original Globe Theatre, named "Shakespeare's Globe Theatre" or "New Globe Theatre".

The next point on our route is St Paul's Cathedral and the City, and to visit that we need to cross the Millennium foot bridge from Tate Modern back to the north bank of the Thames. The views of the river, and the city, both downstream and upstream are magnificent, and the Millennium bridge affords a reasonable approach to the cathedral, normally cramped by nearby buildings. But you can, of course, just take a tube to Blackfriars or St Paul's and ignore the riverside approach.

I used to live less than a mile from St Paul's, just north of the Barbican and sometimes travelled from work by train via Cannon Street station, and then took a bus from a stop just by the cathedral. Initially, I wasn't that impressed, the building seemed severe and boring to me, but slowly, slowly its harmonious beauty worked its magic. Because St Paul's is really a beautiful building and one of the must-sees in London. You don't have to go inside (though it's worth doing, but it costs 10, opens Monday to Saturday 08.30am to 4pm, unless you attend a service, check for those at http://xrl.us/bjhvj), but you have to see its outside magnificence. The best day to see St Paul's (in fact, to day anything in the City) is a Saturday or a Sunday, when the area is free of workers that normally fill the offices of financial institutions there (though there is a buzz of tourists round the cathedral, of course).

You can walk round the City after visiting St Paul's, especially if you are into 17th century churches or conducting ethnographic observation of traders and similar tribes, but if time is short I suggest you catch a bus number 15 (stop SK) which will take you along Cannon Street all the way down to The Tower of London.

Now, the Tower is is certainly not free to enter, in fact it's probably one of the most ridiculously overpriced attractions in London (if not in the whole of Britain) at the whooping 16.50 per adult. But you can walk around it for free, and you can see quite a lot of this rather grim building, an old jail and torture house, now sold to the tourists as one of the jewels in the crown of British heritage.

The one building that's even more strongly associated with London than the Houses of Parliament and the Big Ben Tower must be the Tower Bridge, a rather strange looking (and originally described as absurd, tawdry and pretentious) structure, but a doubtless landmark. You can cross that on foot and have another look at the river (I never tired of the river in all the times I lived in London!) and walk for a while on the south bank again, taking in the new semi-spherical building of the London City Hall and the old battleship HMS Belfast.

Or you can walk back to the Tower Gateway station and take one of the Dockland Light Railway driverless trains to Greenwich (you have to change at Westferry). This will give you an excellent look at what used to be a very busy port and is now a modern financial and residential area, while taking you to Maritime Greenwich, a World Heritage Site, the home to Royal Observatory, Greenwich Mean Time and the Meridian Line. Amazingly, National Maritime Museum, Queen's House and Royal Observatory all offer free admission and, with the Greenwich Park offer a great day out.

If you read the other two parts of my London Walkabout, you must have been wondering, why I have not mentioned all the famous London locations from the very centre: Trafalgar Square, Picadilly Circus, Oxford Street, the theatre land and so on.

The main reason is because the West End is rather pointless when you don't intend to spend money, unless of course you are one of those strange people who enjoy looking at merchandise for the sake of looking. Most of these places are either directly or indirectly about shopping or eating out or paid entertainment and thus not very rewarding for somebody counting pennies.

Still, I suppose there is no avoiding that. Take the tube to Green Park and walk down Picadilly towards Picadilly Circus. You will pass The Ritz, Burlington Arcade and Fortnum and Mason amongst other locations of conspicuous consumption, and after about 700 yards you'll get to Picadilly Circus which is one of the most overrated spots in London: noisy, trafficky, boring and with no attraction I can think of whatsoever apart from the sheer idea of visiting an iconic location, of course

Walk away from Picadilly Circus via Shaftesbury Avenue, leaving Soho on your left, turn right into the big Chinese arch and walk down to Leicester Square via the Chinatown. Leicester Sq is also boring, but you can at least claim you've been this way.

Walk down via Irving Street and St Martin's Place, passing the rather lovely St Martin-in-the-Fields church (free tour normally on Thursdays at 11.30am, book on 02078398362) and the entrance to National Portrait Gallery (free and interesting, but not perhaps on the must-see list) to enter the most famous of London's public spaces, the grand imperial Trafalgar Square, with its Nelson's Column, pigeons, fountains, bronze lions, and the changing display of modern sculpture on its fourth plinth on the Northwest corner.

The square is a popular site for political demonstrations and is the main hub for London's night buses, but its main attraction for free sightseeing hunter is the National Gallery located at the north side of the square, and a wonderful collection of European paintings, from Piero della Francesca and Leonardo da Vinci to Renoir and Van Ghogh.

If painting is not your thing, potter about the Trafalgar Square for a while and then make your way along the Strand, past Charing Cross station and monument (all distances to London are measured from here). Turn left by the Savoy Hotel and take Southampton Street to Covent Garden. It's very difficult to avoid spending money at the countless speciality shops and restaurants there, but it's possible, and it's the main venue for street entertainment in London, with acts competing for spaces (and payment strictly voluntary).

Most areas of London, apart from the oldest part - The City - are dotted with green spaces, be it smaller squares where the residents or workers can sit for a while, or larger parks. They provide a welcome respite from traffic and crowds (although some can get quite busy on sunny days) and often have additional attractions within. All of the parks are rather user friendly - there is no restrictions to sitting on the grass, and there is usually a lot of it.

Some London parks are "Royal Parks" and go back to the times when the royalty had private hunting and riding grounds protected from development. Others are results of the Victorian charitable impulses towards public improvement of the cities. Many of London's green spaces are not officially called parks, but bear names like Common or Heath - these are significantly less cultivated, less managed and not enclosed by fences or walls, but are still very much parks as the rest of the world will understand it and I am including some notable ones in this guide.

This section covers just the most iconic and most interesting of the London parks and green spaces, divided somhow arbitrarily into "central" and "outlying". Wherever you are, apart perhaps from the areas of the City and neighbouring Islington, there is likely to a be decently sized park nearby, and it doesn't take long to get to truly glorious, often ancient green spaces.

How many you visit depends entirely on the amount of time you have and the interest in park-related matters, as well as the season that your visit to London falls in. It's hard to avoid the parks in Central London, as visiting the other sights will invariably bring you near the Hyde Park, Kensigton Gardens and St James's Park. A trip to Greenwich is one of big London days out, and will naturally incorporate the park there.

Of the rest, Kew Gardens are the most unmissable attraction, but charge a hefty entrance fee. Richmond Park and Hampstead Heath are both free and both worth a special trip just for the park itself, and both not only provide grand green spaces for the visitor tired of the city, but help to understand something about London itself.

The southern reaches of London have perhaps the best green spaces in the Greater London. The most magnificent of the Royal Parks, the Kew Gardens, the famous post-war Battersea Park and the Wimbledon Common with Wombles galore.

North London has quite a few green spaces, but there is one area of parkland in North London that has a truly iconic status, and it's worth a visit as much for the views over the whole city and the area it's located in as for the parkland itself: Hampstead Heath.



*Battersea Park*

Located just beyond the river, south of Chelsea, it's a typical Victorian urban park, with a serpentine carriage drive, a formal avenue, an irregular lake, flower gardens and shrubberies.

In 1951 it was a location of the Festival Gardens, part of the the famous Festival of Britain took place here and the fountains still survive. There is a Peace Pagoda, as well as a small children's zoo, boating facilities, a bandstand, and sporting facilities including tennis courts, a running track and football pitches.

http://www.batterseapark.org/

Best for: a daily breather.



*Richmond Park*

This is without a doubt the most wonderful of London Parks. It's huge, covering 2,500 acres of what used to be a royal hunting ground. It feels more like a gently cultivate wood than a park proper, with a "pastoral landscape of hills, woodlands, ponds, gardens and grasslands set amongst ancient trees".

There are herds of red and fallow deer (over 650 in total) roaming the park, and if you are lucky you might come face to face with a magnificent stag. There are relatively few facilities in Richmond Park: it's not an urban park with entertainments, although there are cafes, a restaurant and refreshment points and toilets. There is also a lot of sports facilities for the more active, from outdoor gym programmes to rugby fields, golf courses and football; cycle paths and stables for riding.

The Isabella Plantation, created after WW2, is an organically grown woodland garden and contains the most amazing range and quantity of azaleas and rhododendrons. In the time of flowering it's very worthwhile to make your way there.

All in all, the Richmond Park is a remarkable place, gentle, a bit magical and beautiful. It offers a brilliant respite from the buzz and dustiness of the city and a day out in Richmond park is well worth a trip to the outer reaches of South-Western London, even more so as Richmond itself (and especially its lovely riverside) is a very pleasant place to visit too.

http://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/richmond_park/

Best for: active communing with nature, deer encounters, rhododendrons.



*Bushy Park and Hampton Court*

Bushy Park is adjacent to Hampton Court Palace and actually, technically, north of the Thames. It is, however, so far south and west that it definitely belongs to the South-London section.

As Richmond park, it is vast (over 1,000 acres) and very pleasant; and it has free roaming deer too. Large swathes of Bushy Park feel like rural estate. The hunting ground feel is certainly steel there, and the park abounds in streams and ponds. The centrepiece of the park is a large round pond of Christopher Wren's design with a statue of Diana. Magnificent chestnut avenue leads to the pond. This is perhaps too far out to visit on its own, but if you are exploring the grounds of the Hampton Court, it's very well worth strolling out into the comparative wilderness of the Bushy Park.

Hampton Court Palace Gardens is one of the two parks mentioned in this guide that carries an admission charge (4.60 GBP for adults, or 8.10 with the Maze), but the Maze itself has such an iconic status that it's probably worth paying for just for the feeling of having been there (and it's fun too). The gardens are well tended, abound with historical connections and even house the longest and oldest vine in the world. Hampton Court Palace itself is well worth visiting, and perhaps most interesting and least overpriced of the attractions under the umbrella of the Royal Palaces.

Choose a sunny day, bring a picnic and make a whole day out of it.

http://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/bushy_park/

http://www.hrp.org.uk/HamptonCourtPalace/stories/hamptoncourtgardens.aspx

Best for: marvelling a Tudors, getting lost, fishing.



*Wimbledon Common*

This is a wide expanse of over 1,000 acres of green space (it's actually split into Wimbledon Common, Putney Heath and Putney Lower Common). The land is distinctly countryside like in appearance, with woodland, scrubland, heathland as well as cultivated and mown playing fields and lawns, there are also several ponds. There is a golf course, cricket, football and rugby pitches as well as a lot of tracks for riding.

Wimbledon Windmill with exhibitions on industrial history is a notable landmark, and in popular culture the Common is perhaps best known for Wombles, fictional eco-creatures living in the burrow and engaged in recycling under the motto of "Make Good Use of Bad Rubbish."

http://www.wpcc.org.uk/

Best for: countryside feeling in London, Womble-spotting.



*Royal Botanic Garden at Kew*

This is one of the major London attractions, and accordingly it's quite expensive (13GBP for adults, though under 17s are free if in an adult's company) but well worth a visit and could easily be treated as a whole day out.

Kew is much more than just a park: 300 acres powerhouse of botany with a living plant collection being the largest and most comprehensive in the world. They have representatives of more than 10% of all flowering plant species. Although the aim and mission of the Kew Gardens is mostly scientific (it's the plant equivalent to the Natural History Museum), they take their educational role seriously and the displays are not only gorgeous to look at, but well explained and meaningful.

Huge greenhouses display a fantastic selection of plants from all round the world, and outside the greenhouses, the surrounding parkland offers immensely attractive space, and buildings (from museums to Japanese Minka house) and other features (pagoda, arches, follies and fake ruins) dotted around add to the appeal.


http://www.kew.org/places/kew/index.html

Best for: natural history education, exotic plants, hiding in the tropical greenhouses in the winter.



*Greenwich Park and Blackheath*

Moving to the eastern side of London, but still south of the Thames, Greenwich Park is the last of the Royal Parks in this guide.

Smaller than other outer-London Royal parks, at 183 acres, is laid out around the buildings of Maritime Greenwich, and part of the Greenwich World Heritage Site. The Old Royal Observatory, the Royal Naval College, the National Maritime Museum and the Queen's House are all within the area and the whole complex is well worth visiting - and free to enter.

There are great views to the Thames, St Paul's the City and the Greenwich Meridian runs through it. Travelling to Greenwich is an attraction in itself, allowing the visitor a passing tour of the modernist architecture of regenerated Docklands. As in all larger British parks, there are extensive informal and semi-formal sports facilities and several cafes and refreshment stalls.

Adjacent to the more formal Greenwich Park is the large expanse of the Blackheath, famed for being the place where the golf was introduced to the English and a home of Blackheath Rugby Club, founded in 1858, the oldest recognised rugby club in England.

http://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/greenwich_park/

Best for: walking along the meridian, combining it with a great - and free of charge - museum complex.



*Hampstead Heath*

Hampstead Heath is a truly glorious part of North London, rightly treasured by the inhabitants of surrounding residential districts, themselves a byword for both educated liberal humanism and "having arrived". Hampstead, and to a lesser degree, Highgate, are among the wealthiest London areas, and are associated with members of the professions, intellectuals, artists, writers and generally so called "chattering classes". It is also the part of London with the highest property prices, and largest number of millionaires.

The heath itself is a hilly enclave of grassy spaces, old woodland, playgrounds, complete with bathing ponds and a former stately home housing a Rembrandt and Vermeer among others. The Parliament Hill is one of the highest points in London and gives a fantastic view down: it's one of the few places in London where one doesn't feel the weight of the city bearing down on one's shoulders, with the view stretching from the Gherkin and the Nat-West tower in the east to include St Paul's, London Eye up to the Centrepoint and the Post Office Tower towards the west.

There are plenty of opportunities for sporty activities, from swimming in ponds to volleyball, and it is considered to be the home of cross-country running. Kite-flying is very popular in the open spaces and there are several adventure playgrounds. At night, the western part of the Heath is a notable gay cruising ground.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampstead_Heath

Best for: looking down at the city, kite-flying.

Majority of the most famous London parks are in Central London.



*Hyde Park*

One of the larger Central London parks, at 350 acres, old and perhaps the most famous of London parks, mostly due to the "Speakers Corner" where on Sundays a variety of preachers, fanatics and mentally disturbed shout out their stuff.

But apart form that, it's an OK park to visit, with a lot of open grassy space, used for picnicking oat weekends, a lake called Serpentine with boating (and a swimming lido and paddling pool), cafes and numerous refreshment stalls; a bandstand and a Holocaust Memorial garden. Dead princess' fans will find a rather strange Diana memorial fountain here too.

There are tennis courts, playing fields, a bowling and putting greens, riding area called The Manege, as well as two bridleways. It used to be a place to show off your horses and carriages in the olden days and the name of the Rotten Row - one of the main tracks in the park - is probably a corruption of Route du Roi.

http://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/hyde_park/

Best for: lazing about on the grass or deckchairs, boating on the Serpentine, showing off your riding skills.



*Kensington Gardens*

Almost as large as the Hyde Park, at 275 acres, it contains one of the royal residences (Kensington Palace) and iconic spots like the Peter Pan statue.

This is really a part of the Hyde Park in anything but name, separated from it by The Serpentine and Long Water lakes. The Serpentine art gallery (a good and fashionable one) is technically in Kensington Gardens, and the facilities include two playgrounds and children's entertainment (during school holidays) and bandstand music.

Many visitors flock to the famous Peter Pan statue, and fittingly, a giant pirate ship is the centrepiece of a wonderful (and manned) adventure playground located near the Kensington Palace.

http://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/kensington_gardens/

Best for: romantic walks in tree-lined avenues, kids' playgrounds.



*St James's Park*

It covers 58 acres and is the oldest, and most venerable of the Royal Parks in London, it also sits at the centre of the pageantry of the Empire, with the Mall being the setting for many ceremonial parades and events, the Whitehall at one end and the Buckingham Palace at the other.

It's also a surprisingly pleasant and sheltered place to spend some time, less grand than some other parks, with lots of trees, shrubbery and a lake with ducks, geese and pelicans.

http://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/st_james_park/

Best for: leisurely walk from the Whitehall to the Bucks House, having an ice cream on the bench as squirrels run around you, meetings with spies on the bridge over the lake.



*Green Park*

It's located across The Mall from St James's, on the other side from the Buckingham Palace. It's relatively small, covering only 47 acres, and doesn't have any particular facilities.

Essentially, a large grassy area bordered by tree-lined avenues, it's lovely in the autumn and a walk through it is a great way to get from The Buckingham Palace to Piccadilly.

http://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/green_park/

Best for: sunbathing during your lunch break.



*Regent's Park*

This rounded-shape park is on the edges of what might be considered Central London. Relatively large, at 410 acres it has both with open parkland and formal sections - the rose gardens (Queen Mary's Gardens) feature 400 different varieties and are a sight to behold in the flowering season. The plant life is very varied, from open playing fields to woodlands and grassland.

It's perhaps the most lavish and purposefully designed of the London parks, designed by John Nash in this wonderful flourish of British town planning that was the Regency period, and the buildings contained within and around it give a distinct impression of what the life of the "ton" must have been like.

The open air theatre is an attraction in its own right, and the park also contain a major London attraction that is the London Zoo. There are also sporting facilities, bandstand and puppet shows. There are quite a few cafes too.

North-west of and adjacent to the Regent's Park is the Primrose Hill, a Victorian open space worth climbing up for the view in its own right.

http://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/regents_park/

Best for: strolling stylishly, open-air theatre performances, the Zoo.



*Coram's Fields*

This is a strange park/green space in Bloomsbury, enclosed by walls and devoted to children's needs, adults (anyone over the age of 16) only permitted to enter if in a company of children (under 16). There is a children's playground, sandpits, half-sized football pitches, basketball court, a duck pond, a pets corner, caf and a nursery.

http://www.coramsfields.org/

Best for: kids

The British Museum is an absolute must for all people interested in archaeology and antiques, be it British, European or Middle Eastern.

It's a veritable treasure house of artefacts and a centre of learning (with a library accessible to scholars).

The collections include all that has been brought back home to Blighty by the explorers and scientists and looters of the imperial era, from the famous and controversial Elgin Marbles to many Egyptian mummies to absolutely fantastic Assyrian/Babylonian exhibits.

The British section is also very impressive with exhibits like Sutton Hoo hoard and similar. There is also lots of specialist-interest exhibits including a lot of smaller items like clocks and watches, jewellery, every day objects.

The sheer wealth of the displays reminds the visitors not only about the ancient cultures they teach about, but also about the more and less glorious British past. The Museum is literally filled with the imperial loot, and it's filled with reminders of the work of men who were the real pioneers of archaeology, who really discovered whole new-old world to all of us.

Egyptian section is huge and lavish, and includes a large gallery of mummies as well as this iconic artefact - the Rosetta Stone.

The Ancient Greek section has not only the (in)famous and rightly renowned Elgin marbles from the Parthenon, but also a lot of material from the palace of Knossos and Mausoleum of Halikarnassos.

My personal favourite is definitely the Assyrian/Mesopotamian section -it's huge, and very atmospherically displayed. Winged bulls, Lion hunts, palaces in Nimrud and Nineveh: it's all amazing stuff and the way the galleries are structured, as well as the sheer size of the artefacts make for a very evocative exhibition.

There are also often numerous temporary exhibitions: some are major and paid for, some are free (at the moment there is a paid-for exhibition that explores seventeenth-century Iran through the reign and legacy of one of its most influential rulers, Shah 'Abbas).

The architecture is truly impressive too, with a common (non-gallery) space of the great courtyard covered by glass canopy, and monumental entrance with rather interesting sculptures in its front.

There is a large shop and an (as usual expensive) cafe.

The highlights for a casual visitor can be done in one afternoon/morning; but if you want to really explore and have the required time I suggest you go a few times for couple of hours to better take it all in.



The best thing is, it's all FREE! (like all big national-class museums in London).

It's open daily, 10.0017.30, and until 20.30 on Thursdays and Fridays.

The Great Court is open 09.0018.00 Sun to wed, and late on Thursday, Friday, Saturday (09.0023.00).


The nearby underground stations are Holborn, Tottenham Court Road, Russell Square and Goodge Street.

http://www.britishmuseum.org/

Natural History Museum is one of the largest museums of this type in the world, with over 70 million specimens collected in several areas: Botany, Entomology, Mineralogy, Palaeontology and Zoology. It's not just a collection but a place of research, especially on taxonomy and identification of species. The building itself is also an attraction, and the Great Hall with its diplodocus skeleton forms one of the iconic images of London attractions.

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As soon as my daughter was big enough to say "dinosaur" I took here to the National History Museum during one of our day London trips and we spent about 2.5 hours wandering about the collections. It needs much more - I remembered it from my first visit in 1992, but we will be back.

The building itself is magnificent and makes it worth a visit: even those not interested in living things come to have a look at the glorious facade and the impressive interiors, especially the Great Hall. It was built as a result of a 1864 a competition, won by Captain Francis Fowke and then taken over by Alfred Waterhouse, who designed the facades in the most magnificent neo-Romanesque style.

Recently, the building has been beautifully cleaned to reveal the whole glory of the intricate multi-coloured facade where the sculptures depict all kinds of members of the animal kingdom rather than traditional monster faces of medieval gargoyles.

But most people come here to see what's inside and afford only passing admiring glances to the building itself. I was delighted to find out that National History Museum (as well as Science museum) became completely free of charge some time between 1992 when I last visited and now. We climb the stairs and enter.

Welcome to the beginnings of the science age.

The Natural History Museum comprises Life Galleries, covering mostly animal life (a lot of it now extinct) and Earth Galleries, covering subjects like geology, volcanoes, minerals and the like. Please note that there is very, very little plant related material in Natural History Museum. If you want to see the plants you have to go to Kew Gardens!

*Life Galleries*

For a casual visitor Life Galleries are definitely the priority, and if you have only a little time in a busy London schedule (1 hour or less), you would be better to concentrate solely on these. Most of the exhibitions are located on the ground level of that amazing building, but some have raised walkways/ramps/gallery balconies to see from above. The material is divided according to the taxonomy of animal world but some highlights are dotted around the impressive main hall, whose centre is graced by the fantastic dinosaur skeleton, one that's now iconically associated with the Museum.

The detailed dinosaur section is very, very good: informative, with plenty of text and interactive/electronic displays; lots of fossil exhibits and models, including robotic models. The absolute highlight must be a life-sized robotic model of a T-rex which moves and roars (randomly, so it's more scary). My 4 year old daughter was absolutely terrified even though I carried her (but she remembered it best of the whole museum too).

The other good section is the large mammal one, with plenty of models and stuffed animals placed in one room so you can actually compare the size of the blue whale to other dolphins, giraffes or elephants. The gallery above that exhibit is devoted to sea mammals (mostly whales/dolphins) and is fascinating, with films, demonstrations, maps and models to make their physiology and life closer to us.

There is plenty of stuffed animals in NHM, a lot of them bit scruffy (they display the ones in worse state keeping the better ones for research purposes). Recently they also started to display the specimens in jars - spooky looking lizards, turtles and other strange creatures preserved in alcohol in old fashioned glass containers. I found it bit horrible but my daughter was fascinated and loved it!

I was slightly disappointed by the Primate section located on the first floor gallery which, though interesting (we loved trying to guess the sounds monkeys make to communicate), seemed bit sparse.

Above the Great Hall rests one of the few plant-related exhibits, a cross section of a giant sequoia tree felled in 19th century after something like 1000 years of life. Truly impressive!

Creepy Crawlies is a new, modern, interactive gallery devoted to arthropods, from insects to spiders, and most of it is better suited to older children/teenagers.

Human Biology section is another highlight, with models of internal organ systems and interactive facilities that probably require a day of visiting on its own to take it all in.

*Earth Galleries*

We went round only some of the Earth Galleries and rather quickly: the entrance is very impressive, with escalator taking the visitors up to the sphere made of what looked like rusty tin plates, filled with spooky light.

The galleries are interesting, though there is less to simply look at and more to take in in the way of text descriptions and explanations. I would say that the youngest age that would be able to enjoy it has to be at least 7-8 year olds, and it's probably better suited to adults and Secondary School age children.

*Practicalities*

The museum has the usual cafe(s), shop (not bad for a museum money spinner) as well as a cloakroom (very useful for day-trippers and in the winter). The charge for leaving a piece of luggage was 3GBP, which is by the way significantly lower than a charge at Victoria Station left luggage (where it cost 5.50).

It's located in South Kensington and the easiest way to get there is to take a district or circle line to South Kensington, and from then on there are signs - it's about 5 minutes walk. It opens between 10 and 18, daily.