This was going to be my last full day in London, and also it turns out it’s the tenth anniversary of the first time I arrived in London, way back in the unfathomably distant year of 2009. There’s been a lot happen since then, but I’m glad I’m lucky enough to still be travelling!
I started the day off with a nice walk through Hyde Park, as the weather was good and it seemed a shame to take the tube when it wasn’t too far to walk. There were a lot of people exercising, and even some dog walkers, roller bladers and horse riders. It’s great that there’s such a large expanse of green space so close to one of the busiest cities in the world.
(Before I forget, this particular entry is going to be more photos than text, as there’s no point describing everything when I can just show it!)
The first museum on my list was the Victoria and Albert Museum (more commonly known as the V&A). It’s not usually my scene, as it focuses more on the arts and design than the historical objects that is more my cup of tea, but they do have them, and it’s the only big London museum I hadn’t been to yet. They also have the Cast Courts, which is fascinating – two massive halls filled not with original sculptures, but with copies. Casts of huge statues and architectural features that were made mostly in the 19th century and are essentially museum pieces in and of themselves. One of the halls is dominated by a two-part cast of Trajan’s Column in Rome. It’s almost impossible to understand how they managed to make a copy of something so large, and indeed, the halls themselves were basically built around these casts – the height of the hall was designed to fit each half of the cast.
After meeting up with a friend in the V&A, we headed across the road to the Natural History Museum, one of my favourite places in all the world. The main hall looks very different without “Dippy”, the replica Diplodocus skeleton that had stood in the hall from 1905 til 2017. Dippy is now on tour around the UK, and has been replaced by “Hope” a 25m long blue whale skeleton, which is impressive in it’s own right, especially hanging above visitor’s heads. We spent a while exploring the museum, including the ‘Museum of the Moon’ exhibition, which is a giant photo-realistic model of the moon, which was very cool to see.
Continuing the moon theme, we headed next door to the Science Museum in time to catch an IMAX showing of the recent Apollo 11 documentary. It wasn’t the full length version, but a cut down one specifically for museums to show. It hit all the highlights though, and experiencing the rumble of the Saturn V launch scene in IMAX was worth the effort of going by itself!
After the film we had a look around the museum (including an interesting exhibition on GCHQ, the Government Communication Headquarters, which is basically the modern version of Bletchley Park), I grabbed another badge for my collection from the shop (and a magnet of Laika, the Soviet space dog who was the first animal to orbit the earth!) and then we headed out for dinner and to properly catch up. Finally it was back to the hotel to pack, as my time in London is up and I’m headed North to Chester tomorrow.
