Last Sunday morning, I was awoken (in our hotel room at the Kensington Gardens Thistle Hotel) by muffled squeals from the kids' bedroom. They'd just noticed that we could see the London Eye in the distance from the window. (We'd visited the London Eye the day before, making it even more special.)
As the sun came up, I pointed out the Royal Albert Hall too, directly opposite our hotel, just a short stroll through Kensington Gardens.
This gave me an idea - I hopped online (thanks to Thistle's Wifi !) and confirmed what I thought I knew. The Natural History Museum is really close by, so, knowing how much Sophie loves fossils and always wanted to see the dinosaur skeletons, I decided we should start our Sunday with a trip to the museum. But first we had a Full English Breakfast to devour !
After (over) filling out tummies, a walk through the park was just what the doctor ordered.
We spotted squirrels, geese, swans, dog walkers and lots of joggers.
It was the perfect crisp autumnal morning, after the torrential downpour that we'd got caught in the night before.
The Royal Albert Hall awaited us on the other side of the park. I managed to snap a pic with a London bus without even meaning to ! This was extra special as the Festival of Remembrance had taken place here the night before and we were just about to head off to the poppies at the Tower of London.
We were in the queue for the Natural History Museum ten minutes before its 10am opening time. There were only a handful of people in front of us which was rather impressive.
The star attraction had to be the huge dinosaur skeleton in the equally impressive hall.
We were amazed at how small his head was in relation to the rest of his body.
Look out Sophie, it's behind you !
The sheer size of the prehistoric animals is mind-blowing.
There was a very impressive animated model of a dinosaur that flicked its tail and roared - so impressive in fact that Pierre was scared to death and I had to move on to the next exhibit with him, leaving Madhouse Daddy and the girls to admire him !
The other thing that Sophie really wanted to see was the blue whale skeleton. We didn't actually find it (we only had about an hour to spend in the museum so we only saw a fraction of it) but we did find the exhibit showing the scale of the blue whale alongside other big mammals. Look how small the elephant looks in comparison !
I couldn't help but giggle when I saw the name of this mammal (Salt's Dik-dik).
Which made Sophie roll her eyes because I'd already sniggered at this in the queue to get in.
As well as this restaurant that we passed in the taxi ! What can I say ? London obviously brought out my childish streak !
Just time to try out the earthquake simulator which was great fun (and convinced me that on our next school trip to London, I should bring the kids here rather than the Science Museum which is just a bit too big) and it was time to jump in a taxi and head off to see the poppies at the Tower.
We had a fantastic weekend in London but only saw a fraction of the things we wanted to vsit - we'll have to come back some time in the not too distant future !
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Looks like you had a great time - I love dinosaurs!
ReplyDeleteWe did :) We definitely want to go back for a proper visit when we have more time - and maybe when Pierre is a bit bigger so he can appreciate it more instead of being scared !!
DeleteAfter reading this visit is going on our list of places to visit next year, very informative, thank you.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great day out! I must take my kids to the Natural History Museum.
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