British Museum and Natural History Museum ideas please

his_missus

We're visiting London for a few days this December and my mum wants to visit both the British Museum and the Natural History Museum, not because she has a particular interest in history, she just hasn't been to either before.


I've looked at both of the websites and feel a bit overwhelmed by the amount of things to see and do.


We're only going to do the free parts to keep the costs of our trip down. We have quite a few hours to spend at each museum.


What are the exhibitions/artifacts that are definitely worth a look?

wallbash

Well the British Museum caters very well for your problem, just download the 1/3 hour highlight tour on their webpage.

Ps I would pop next door ( when at the Nat ) to the Science .
Big toys !!

Mrs_Soup

The mummies!

Natural History museum has a lot of stuffed animals and that famous dinosaur skeleton plus a very good dinosaur exhibit complete with lifesize roaring animatronic T-rex. I would say the Science museum is better - some good stuff on earthquakes and whatnot and the escalator is rather dramatic.

CIS

Both are very good but the Natural History Museum is the one that suffers worst from queues - December should be relatively quiet though.

bylromarha

British Museum - the Rosetta Stone, the egyptian display on the 2nd floor, the easter island statues and the Elgin marbles are the highlights for us.

CupOfChai

CIS wrote: »

Both are very good but the Natural History Museum is the one that suffers worst from queues - December should be relatively quiet though.

Go in the side entrance, the queues generally aren't as bad as the main front entrance.

Mummies and megafauna. And you can look at the maps on the websites to plan which bits you fancy in advance. Don't waste time looking at thousands of bits of minerals or broken Etruscan pottery unless you're really into that sort of thing.

Edit - agh, yes! I forgot about the Rosetta Stone! And I'm not sure how into it your mum would be but the British Museum also has a crystal skull, a la most recent Indiana Jones film. It's a bit difficult to find, tucked away in a corner of a big room.

dontone

We have been going to London Village for the last couple of years in December and been to see the dinosaurs at the Natural History museum both times, also Darwin and we found Guy The Gorilla (through the main hall, up the stairs to Darwin's statue, turn right and he's there somewhere)
In regards to time, try and get there when it first opens at 10am, because around 11am(ish), it starts filling up with school kids.
The British Museum is good, like the others have said plenty to see in there - we are going back in a few weeks and are going back to see the mummies.
I didn't like the Science Museum though, tbh given the choice I'd rather go to the Natural History museum, but I'm not into mechanical stuff, although the space section is quite interesting (if you can get near with all the schoolkids, it gets a bit hectic in there)
HTH

SailorSam

I like Museums. I often go here in Liverpool.
I was listening to our local radio and they were talking about an exhibition that's on at the moment about the thousands of young children that were shipped off to Canada; Australia; New Zealand etc. At first as refugees from the war, but later from homes were their Mums may have been unmarried Mothers.
That's no good for you Op being in London but i think i'll go.

thor

Both museums are good but I would favour the Natural History museum. The building itself is quite astonishing and I cannot see something similar ever being built again due to the astronomical amount it would cost. There are full size models of whales(including blue amongst others), mammoths, rhinos, hippos and plenty of other mega-fauna in ONE room alone!
I very much recommend spending time at both of these institutions.

SW17

If you go to the Natural History Museum and you want to see the dinosaurs, get there early and go to that first, it gets a lot more crowded than the other halls as the day progresses. Sunday mornings are good.

The British Museum website has 1 hour and 3 hour visit suggestions which could be useful. There's also a Ming Dynasty exhibition, but that's not free.

Not sure when in Dec you'll be in London, although it's not the busiest season, weekend of 5-8 Dec pretty busy as it is a holiday weekend in Spain and Italy, and they usually come to London in droves.

his_missus

We're going to London 8th - 12th December, hopefully we'll miss the Spanish and Italian crowds. We were hoping that going during the week would mean less crowds than at the weekends, especially in December.


Thanks for all your ideas and advice. I've printed out the British Museum's 3 hour visit guide and floor plans. Also printed out Natural History museum plans so mum can study and decide what takes her fancy before we set off.