Natural History Museum - - London

The Natural History Museum is one of three museums Exhibition Road in London. (the others are the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. The museum is home to life and earth science specimens comprising some 70 million items within five main collections:Botany,Entomology, Mineralogy, Palaeontology and Zoology. The Museum is a world-renowned center of research. Given the age of the institution many of the collections have historical as well as scientific value, including the specimens collected by Darwin

The museum is particularly famous for its exhibition of dinosaur skeletons, and ornate architecture - sometimes dubbed a cathedral of nature. One of the most famous and certainly most prominent of the exhibits - affectionately known as Dippy - is a 105 foot long replica of a Diplodocus carnegii dinosaur skeleton, situated within the central hall. The cast was given as a gift by the Scottish American industrialist Andrew Carnegie, after a discussion with King Edward VII, then a keen trustee of the British Museum. Carnegie arranged for the cast to be created at his own considerable expense of £2000,copying the original held at the Carnegie Museum.

The whole time Sarah and I were visiting the Museum we couldn't help but think about the movie "A Night at the Museum". We wondered what it would be like to be trapped in this museum at night watching all of these dinosaurs come to life. How cool would that be! To see so many different dinosaurs all in one place would be simply amazing. The next time you're in London you definitely need to come and check this museum out. We ended up staying almost the whole day. The Museum has free admission which is a great deal especially with the horrible dollar/pound conversion rate. However, there is still an entry charge for some of the temporary exhibitions such as the Antarctica Challenge and Butterfly Exhibit. Details of current exhibitions and charges can be found at www.nhm.ac.uk. The Museum is open every day (except the 24th/25th/26th of December) from 10:00-17:30.