During our visit to London, we couldn’t miss visiting at least some of the museums, especially since many of them are free of charge and very interesting for children. We had the Science and Natural History Museum on the agenda from the beginning, and the British Museum turned out to be a nice bonus on the last day.

Science Museum
The museum is located near South Kensington Station, next to the Natural History Museum. Exhibitions devoted to machines, aviation, medicine, technology development, experiments, etc. are organized on several floors. We started our tour with the 3D cinema and the film Red Arrows. Honestly, I was convinced that the Red Arrows flight was a simulator flight, not a mini cinema with reclining seats, so overall I was a bit disappointed. However, if you choose the Typhoon Force, you will be “flying” in such a small simulator. You can also choose FLY 360 ° – a 2-person simulator, where you sit at the controls of the plane (over 9 years old). These attractions cost £5 for Red Arrows and Typhoon Force and £12 for FLY 360 ° respectively. Gabriela liked it very much and was disappointed that it was so short (only a few minutes), while Adam was scared and said that he did not like it (but if I hadn’t taken him, it would of course be a drama :)) So, each of us had a different opinion on this. In addition, the Museum also has an IMAX cinema, where you can watch a 1-hour-long 3D movie.
We spent a lot of time in the educational games zone on the top floor of the museum. In addition, we checked how big the plane and its wheel are, we watched old telephones, tv:s and computers (children could not believe that what is now in a smartphone was once the size of a wardrobe) and we spent a lot of time at the exhibition devoted to space travel. There, the children learned about what astronauts eat, how they wash, how they sleep and how they pee 😉 A very interesting exhibition for everyone.
We spent about 4 hours in the Museum. A bit too long for me, although of course you could spend the whole day there to make sure you see everything.
As I said, the Museum is free, but you have to order “tickets” for a given hour online, which are checked at the entrance. If you want to go to the IMAX cinema or take advantage of simulator flights, it is also better to buy tickets in advance. There is of course a large restaurant in the museum (a few hot dishes to choose from, including vegetarian and pizza, salads, sandwiches, etc.) and several smaller cafeterias.

Natural History Museum
This museum is located right next to the Science Museum, in an architecturally beautiful building. The exhibitions at the Museum are organized around several main themes: zoology, paleontology, botany, entomology and mineralogy. We managed to visit only part of the museum, because we were a bit tired after the Science Museum. So we chose the most interesting exhibitions for the children. We started with volcanoes and earthquakes, then it was time to visit the famous diplodocus Dippie, who recently returned to the Museum in London after touring around Great Britain for several years. We also visited other exhibitions devoted to dinosaurs and animals. We compared the size of various mammals in relation to the whale, we learned the differences between the African and Asian elephants and we visited an exhibition devoted to spiders and insects 🙂 Adam, who was terrified of dinosaurs 2 years ago in a similar museum in Brussels, was now delighted. And actually it was he who kept me exploring.
Admission to the museum is free, but tickets must be ordered online in advance.

British Museum
It is the largest museum in the UK and one of the largest in the world. It boasts a collection of about 8 million exhibits from all over the world. It is dedicated to human history, art and culture. In the museum you will find, among others the art of ancient Egypt and Sudan, Greece and Rome, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and medieval Europe. As you can easily guess, museum collections are the subject of a lot of discussion about their origin and possible return to their countries of origin. Colloquially speaking, you can see in the museum the treasures that the British managed to steal over the centuries from their colonies 🙂
Of course, you can spend the whole day in the museum, but we only had one single hour before heading off to the airport. We managed to see Egyptian mummies (which is what children are interested in) and treasures from Sutton Hoo (which I was very interested in after watching the movie “The Dig” recently). The building of the museum itself is also very impressive and all in all I wish we had devoted more time to this museum. Maybe next time?
The museum is also free and, as in previous museums, you have to order tickets for a given hour online.