A museum day out in London

Harry loves a museum, so when we were planning a day out for his birthday a London museum trip was the obvious choice. We last did a family London trip in January 2020 before Covid, and we were also keen to visit the British Museum to see the real Parthenon Marbles after our holiday in Athens last year. 

We decided to spend the morning at the British Museum and then head to the Science Museum for the afternoon, another favourite that we've visited many times over the years. We booked free tickets online for both of these museums but it didn't seem too busy, so I think you can probably visit without booking especially if it's first thing or later on in the day.

At the British Museum we started with the Egyptian collections. There's a lot to see! Although currently some exhibits like the Rosetta Stone have been temporarily moved to a paid exhibition. We saw the mummies of course, before heading to the Greek sculptures. The Parthenon Marbles exhibition area is nicely done, but you can't help thinking that the marbles should probably be back in Athens. 

I can see the argument both ways, because if they hadn't been removed to the museum then they probably wouldn't be in such good condition now. But now that there is an excellent new Acropolis museum in the very shadow of the Parthenon, with spaces for the missing marbles, it really does feel as though they should all be displayed there together. 

We stopped for a quick sandwich and then headed to the Science Museum. Mia isn't such a museum fan, so my husband took her to the shops for a break while I made a start with Harry. When we arrived I asked Harry where he wanted to start and he answered 'with the boats!' I couldn't work out what he meant until I realised that he was talking about the play area in the basement of the museum - The Garden - where there is a huge water play table with boats. He spent many happy hours playing there in the past when he was tiny! But sadly I had to break it to him that it's only for ages 6 and under - he was so disappointed!

Luckily there is plenty to see at the Science Museum and so he wasn't sad for long. We started with a new temporary (and free) exhibition - Injecting Hope: The race for a Covid-19 vaccine. It was really good, very approachable with just enough science to make it interesting without being overwhelming. There was also lots of memorabilia to see like home testing kits, signage from vaccine centres, even the penguin T-shirt worn by the first lady to receive the vaccine! I must admit that it did bring back quite a lot of emotions to see the timeline to a vaccine laid out like that and remembering all the anxiety that was around, especially in the early days of the pandemic before the vaccine was developed.

Then we walked back through one of Harry's favourite areas, the Exploring Space area. We are pretty familiar with this area as we've visited it many times over the years, but there are still lots of interesting things to see. I like all the areas about daily life in space and the future of space travel. Then I was starting to get quite tired legs, so I was happy to have a sit down and let Harry wander around the Mathematics gallery before we headed up to Flight. Harry can spend ages here, so I had to speed him up a bit! My favourite exhibit is the cut-through section of a Boeing 747 showing two floors of seating and the cargo hold. It's fascinating, I can stand looking at it for ages!

We did a quick sweep through some of the other galleries but we couldn't possibly see everything and we were all a bit museumed out. It was time to head home, despite Harry's longing glances as we walked past the Natural History Museum. We'll have to save a visit there for another day!