Day 8: Still in London
I actually went to the Museum of Natural History and the British Museum today. I thought yesterday that my feet were hurting, today I actually can’t walk anymore.
From 10 on I was in the Museum of Natural History. Waiting around in the long queue paid of, the place is great. The geology exibits were very fascinating and the Dinosaurs anyway. You really only get a sense of the true size of those beasts when you actually stand next to the fossilized skeleton of a Triceratops and notice that you wouldn’t even reach it’s hip. This was something really great about the museum: you could get very close to the things, some were replicated so that one could actually get a feel for them. I loved it and would have loved this as a child. Only problem was that since it was Sunday, the place was of course totally packed. Might also have something to do with the free admission. I really can’t get over this. I don’t know how it is in Berlin on the Museumsinsel, but I can not think of any museum around my place of living that doesn’t have an entrance fee that makes it very expensive for a family to do something cultural.
The British Museum also had no mandatory entrance fee. I donated the five pounds anyway, because that is still cheaper than I would have expected.
The British Museum was overwhelming - and I do not mean this in a totally positive way. I actually got lost there twice and despite the fact that I was there from one o’clock till closing time I didn’t see everything. There are so many things packed on little room that sometimes you literally can’t see the forest for the trees anymore. Still, it was great. I loved the themed exhibitions, like the one about the history of money, or the history of dealing with death in different cultures. Or the one about the founding time of the museum and the enlightenment period where they had a copy of the Rosetta Stone that could be touched and examined from all sides. Very nice.
Still, while walking through the Egyptian and Greek parts of the exhibitions I started to wonder how many temples and places of cultural heritage had been left stripped bare of their contents and sometimes their very walls by the explorers and collectors. I can understand why the Greek government would like to have the temple back, no matter how long it has been in the British Museum.
At half past five the museum closed, I still hadn’t seen the Africa part - in my defence, it was in the basement and the entrance not exactly easy to find. Went back to the hotel and put up my feet. Now I can barley walk from the bed to the toilet.
But it was worth it!
From 10 on I was in the Museum of Natural History. Waiting around in the long queue paid of, the place is great. The geology exibits were very fascinating and the Dinosaurs anyway. You really only get a sense of the true size of those beasts when you actually stand next to the fossilized skeleton of a Triceratops and notice that you wouldn’t even reach it’s hip. This was something really great about the museum: you could get very close to the things, some were replicated so that one could actually get a feel for them. I loved it and would have loved this as a child. Only problem was that since it was Sunday, the place was of course totally packed. Might also have something to do with the free admission. I really can’t get over this. I don’t know how it is in Berlin on the Museumsinsel, but I can not think of any museum around my place of living that doesn’t have an entrance fee that makes it very expensive for a family to do something cultural.
The British Museum also had no mandatory entrance fee. I donated the five pounds anyway, because that is still cheaper than I would have expected.
The British Museum was overwhelming - and I do not mean this in a totally positive way. I actually got lost there twice and despite the fact that I was there from one o’clock till closing time I didn’t see everything. There are so many things packed on little room that sometimes you literally can’t see the forest for the trees anymore. Still, it was great. I loved the themed exhibitions, like the one about the history of money, or the history of dealing with death in different cultures. Or the one about the founding time of the museum and the enlightenment period where they had a copy of the Rosetta Stone that could be touched and examined from all sides. Very nice.
Still, while walking through the Egyptian and Greek parts of the exhibitions I started to wonder how many temples and places of cultural heritage had been left stripped bare of their contents and sometimes their very walls by the explorers and collectors. I can understand why the Greek government would like to have the temple back, no matter how long it has been in the British Museum.
At half past five the museum closed, I still hadn’t seen the Africa part - in my defence, it was in the basement and the entrance not exactly easy to find. Went back to the hotel and put up my feet. Now I can barley walk from the bed to the toilet.
But it was worth it!