Best museum ever (for me, that is). When I was a kid, I used to hate most museums because I found them too boring (I'm guessing I wasn't the only one), except perhaps for science museums, since they had awesome experiments for children. But little by little I'm starting to appreciate them and this is one of my favorites.
As its name indicates, this is a museum devoted to the history of the earth and its inhabitants, all within an amazing building, as you will see in the (few) pictures I'll be posting. As I've already mentioned I love Harry Potter and its aesthetics and this rather big building reminds me of that particular world.
If you go into the museum through the main entrance, this is what you'll find:
A nice dinosaur skeleton, a Charles Darwin statue, and a beautiful architecture.
If you access the building through the other entrance, you'll see this:
The earth (more or less) surrounded by constellation maps. If you go up those stairs you'll find the area devoted to earth phenomenons, such as volcanoes, earthquakes, etc.
I love both entrances, but as far as the contents are concerned I usually enter through the first door because it's easier to access the areas devoted to animals. You can also see the dinosaur exhibition, which is the most popular (and there are really long queues of people on Sundays). Personally I don't find it that interesting; some skeletons are amazing, of course, but it's not as big as I thought and the T-Rex, which sort of moves, is not really impressive. But hey, we all enjoy different things so if there aren't many people be sure to check it out.
If you go to the first floor you'll see the history of mankind, where men are compared to monkeys.
A bit further there's a huge room where stones and minerals are exhibited:
Very nice indeed. If you go up some more stairs, there's a chunk of sequoia (the biggest tree in the world) that you'll be able to admire if you wish.
But to me, the best part is the one devoted to mammals, and animals in general.
Then (well, depending on where you go next) you'll see all the fish, reptiles, and more, an area that I don't particularly enjoy but that is mainly because I'm not a fan of fish. I mentioned in the title that this is Part 1 of the Natural History Museum entry, because I took so many photos that I don't want to put them all today. Next time I'll talk about the blue whale room, where a huge blue whale replica is shown (obviously) along with other wonderful animals like deer, bison, and more.
I haven't talked about everything you can find in there, I guess that is up to you now. NHM is open everyday from 10h to 17h50 (on Sundays it closes at 17h30) and it's free. There's also an extension of the museum that I haven't visited yet because it's a bit far away, called 'Nhm at Tring', but it looks pretty interesting as well.
And after this brief post, I'm going to play some guitar.
