I’d quite forgotten how cool the Natural History Museum is. Today, whilst Mirela was studying, I went with her Mum, Aunt and sister to go check the Museum out. Its been just over 5 years since I last properly visited this museum (the last visit being when I came to London for the first time in 2003 on a short holiday) so I guess I was overdue a visit.

Housed in a beautiful building the Natural History Museum is an impressive sight, particularly on a beautiful day like today were the blue sky brings out the gorgeous green lawns and inspring sight of the building.

The nicest thing about the Natural History Museum is the fact that a lot of thought has been given to the presentation of the various exhibitions – most of the times there will be interactive components but what was most striking was the interesting and varied way information was presented between each of the galleries. Every gallery we went into was quite visually appealing. The only confusing aspect was the paper map – which, written in its three-D style, had me all turned around! But that was probably me. The Museum itself is well sign-posted to direct you to the relevant areas without a map as long as you know which zone you need to get to.

Zones are broken up in the Red, Green, Blue and Orange Zones. The Red zone being dedicated to all things earthly, the Green for all things planet-wise, environment-wise and evolution-wise, the Blue for all things alive on our planet (strangely including the dinosaurs!) and the Orange for all things wildlife. There is a lot in this museum that’s for sure! I was impressed that they even had a display on the volcano (Mount Pinatubo) that erupted in 1991 in the Philippines. Admittedly this was one big-arse disaster!

A highlight of our visit included one of the more dramatic entrances to a zone being the Giant Earth Sculpture up into which you ride the escalator. Its stunning and you can understand why everyone stopped there in particular to take their pics. I also liked the overhead walkway they had on the Dinosaur zone and the “simulation” earthquake (of the Kobe disaster) they had in the Red Zone.

We were only at the Museum for a few hours so didn’t get around to all the exhibits so I guess something to do on a rainy weekend perhaps. Next time I’ll be making sure to visit the Butterfly temporary exhibition too!