How to spend a perfect day in London

August 20, 2016 - Tanya's Magical Anniversary Trip - Day 4 - London and Best Museums in London

8/19/2016

Elisa's Daily Scoop

Best Museums in London

The weekEND already?? Yup, it appears so!
Is this month speeding by or what!!

Well, today, to complement Tanya’s museum hopping in London, I thought I would tell ya’ll about the various museums in London and the special treasures they each hold.

But first, let me detail a bit about my day yesterday. As I had mentioned, me and the girlies were cleaning out old toys and books, still in very good condition to give away.

Our initial plan was to bring it to a local shelter, and then we found out a struggling family a few towns away and decided to give it to them.

They have a 2 year old little girl and a newborn as well! Books are such a wonderful commodity and I remember how I was constantly either buying new books or visiting the library with the girls when they were little to sit and read for hours.

So, I wanted to be sure that the books we painstakingly collected and enjoyed over the years ended up in good hands!!

The rest of the day, I did some little projects around the house - repainting my wicker porch furniture with my Dad. What a difference a little sprucing up can make!!

With the lovely breeze on my porch, there is nothing better than sitting outside on a Summer Day, except enjoying it on a Fall Day!! Now, I'm all set!

Museums, Museums Museums
What would any trip be without visiting the local museums! The history and information is so key to understanding and learning about the local culture.

Of course, a big city such as London has literally hundreds of museums and galleries and clearly there is not enough time to see them all on a short visit. However, there are a few major ones of which to take special note.

What’s more, many of the museums in London are free, which is great news for the budget conscious traveler!

THE BRITISH MUSEUM - Free
www.britishmuseum.org

The British Museum (photo credit: en.wikipedia.org)

The British Museum is dedicated to human history, art and culture, and is located in the Bloomsbury area of London.

Established in 1753, based largely on the collections of the physician and scientist Sir Hans Sloane, the museum first opened to the public on January 15, 1759, in Montagu House, on the site of the current building.

There are more than 8 million works in its permanent collection and is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence.

This museum comprises works from all continents, documenting the story of human culture from its beginnings to present day.

MUSEUM OF LONDON - Free
www.museumoflondon.org.uk

Museum of London (photo credit: hirespace.com)

The Museum of London is the world's largest urban museum, packed with historic objects and exhibitions telling the story of London's past from prehistoric to modern times. .

The museum was opened in December 1976 as part of the Barbican Estate, and the architects were Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya who adopted an innovative approach to museum design, whereby the galleries were laid out so that there was only one route through the museum – from the prehistoric period to the modern galleries.

Within the museum is a series of chronological galleries containing everything from original artifacts, models, pictures and diagrams, with a strong emphasis on archaeological discoveries, the built city, urban development and London's social and cultural life, with interactive displays and activities for all ages.

It hosts more than 1 million visitors annually

NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM - Free
www.nhm.ac.uk

Natural History Museum, London (photo credit: visitlondon.com)

The Natural History Museum in London exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history.

It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Opened in 1881, it was officially called the "British Museum (Natural History)" until 1992 and the foundation of the collection was that of the Ulster doctor Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753), who allowed his significant collections to be purchased by the British Government at a price well below their market value at the time.

The museum is home to life and earth science specimens comprising some 80 million items within five main collections: botany, entomology, mineralogy, paleontology and zoology. The museum is a world-renowned centre of research specialising in taxonomy, identification and conservation.

VICTORIA & ALBERT MUSEUM - Free
www.vam.ac.uk

Victoria & Albert Museum (photo credit: en.wikipedia.org)

The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

The V&A covers 12.5 acres and 145 galleries. Its collection spans 5,000 years of art, from ancient times to the present day, from the cultures of Europe, North America, Asia and North Africa.

The holdings of ceramics, glass, textiles, costumes, silver, ironwork, jewellery, furniture, medieval objects, sculpture, prints and printmaking, drawings and photographs are among the largest and most comprehensive in the world.

ROYAL MUSEUMS GREENWICH
www.rmg.co.uk

Royal Museums London (photo credit: visitlondon.com)

A UNESCO's World Heritage site, this complex includes the National Maritime Museum, the Queen's House, the Royal Observatory (incorporating the Peter Harrison Planetarium) and the spectacular tea clipper Cutty Sark.

The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London, is the leading maritime museum of the United Kingdom and may be the largest museum of its kind in the world.

Queen's House is a former royal residence built between 1616–1635 for Anne of Denmark, the queen of King James I.

Queen's House is one of the most important buildings in British architectural history, being the first consciously classical building to have been constructed in the country.

The Royal Observatory, Greenwich (known as the Royal Greenwich Observatory or RGO when the working institution moved from Greenwich to Herstmonceux after World War II) is an observatory situated on a hill in Greenwich Park, overlooking the River Thames.

It played a major role in the history of astronomy and navigation, and is best known as the location of the prime meridian.

Commissioned in 1675 by King Charles II, the Observatory had the foundation stone laid on August 10th.

Cutty Sark is a British clipper ship. Built on the Clyde in 1869 for the Jock Willis Shipping Line, she was one of the last tea clippers to be built and one of the fastest, coming at the end of a long period of design development which halted as sailing ships gave way to steam propulsion.

IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM - Free
www.iwm.org.uk

Imperial War Museum (photo credit: visitlondon.com)

Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, the museum was created to record the civil and military war effort and sacrifice of Britain and its Empire during the First World War.

The museum has since been expanded to include all conflicts in which British or Commonwealth forces have been involved since 1914.

As of 2012, the museum aims 'to provide for, and to encourage, the study and understanding of the history of modern war and "wartime experience," according to their website.

Tanya is on her way to visit The British Museum today - looking forward to hearing all about her day!

As for me, I'll be hanging out by the pool today with the kiddies and working on my end of Summer tan!

Hope it's a great one for you!!

-E
xoxo

Tanya's Daily Blog
CURRENTLY TRAVELING IN:
PARIS, FRANCE

Here, there & Everywhere!

Hello everyone or should I say Bon Jour?!

(c)travelincousins.com

Now have I confused you enough?

There I have let you in on where I was staying in London (at the Savoy on the Strand) and now a warm GREETINGS from Paris!!

We took the first train out of London (which means we only got a few hours of sleep and thought the Chunnel we went.

The Channel Tunnel, nicknamed and shortened to Chunnel is a 31.4 mi rail tunnel Kent, in the UK, with Coquelles, (near Calais) in northern France.
At its lowest point 250 ft deep.

DID YOU KNOW:
The tunnel has the longest undersea portion of any tunnel in the world!

If you want to hear about the rest of the day, your gonna have to come back again tomorrow!

For now I want to tell you all about our nearly perfect yesterday in London!
We woke up to it being all rainy, which I was happy about - I not only love the rain, but I wanted to break out my umbrella and trench-coat.

(c)travelincousins.com

We walked through Convent Garden in order fetch some breakfast.
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and with the Royal Opera House, which is also known as "Covent Garden".

The streets were all windy that we pratically walked round in a circle at our first attempt at getting to the planned restaurant!

(c)travelincousins.com

After breakfast, we were off to the British Museum and apparently so was everyone else!!!

The place was pretty much like a zoo - not the way I prefer to enjoy my museum days.

(c)travelincousins.com

As droves of people continued to fill the museum, Dave and I went to go have afternoon tea - and let me just tell you that I found the perfect place!!!

I'll show you a few pics now and save the Full Scoop for my Afternoon Tea Foodie Friday after I return to the states.

(c)travelincousins.com

Everything was just DIVINE!

Our original plan was to head back to the museum after tea, but I had come up with a better way to spend the rest of the day...