London (Fodor's 2012) - Fodor's [67]
Kensington Palace Tips
If you also plan to visit the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, Banqueting House, or Kew Palace, become a member of Historic Royal Palaces. It costs £41 per person, or £80 for a family, and gives you free entry to all five sites for a year. Picnicking is allowed on the benches in the palace grounds. (You can also picnic anywhere in the adjoining Kensington Gardens.) There’s a delightful café in the Orangery, near the Sunken Garden. Built for Queen Anne, it’s a great place for formal afternoon tea, although you have to book ahead. It’s only recently that the palace has made much fuss over its most famous modern resident, the late Diana, Princess of Wales. One commemorative event was the Field of Flowers—an open-air art installation featuring thousands of dandelion heads arranged into giant flowers. | The Broad Walk, Kensington Gardens, Kensington | W8 4PX | 0844/482–7799 advance booking, 0844/482–7777 information, 0203/166–6000 from outside U.K. | www.hrp.org.uk | £12.50 | Mar.–Sept., daily 10–6; Oct.–Feb., daily 10–5; last admission 1 hr before closing | Queensway, High Street Kensington.
Fodor’s Choice | Natural History Museum.
The outrageously ornate terra-cotta facade of this enormous Victorian museum is strewn with relief panels, depicting living creatures to the left of the entrance and extinct ones to the right. It’s an appropriate design, for within these walls lie more than 70 million different specimens.
Only a small percentage is on public display, but you could still spend a day here and not come close to seeing everything. The museum is full of cutting-edge exhibits, with all the wow-power and interactives necessary to secure interest from younger visitors.
Natural History Museum Highlights
A giant diplodocus skeleton dominates the vaulted, cathedral-like entrance hall, affording you perhaps the most irresistible photo opportunity in the building. It’s just a cast, but the Dinosaur Gallery (Gallery 21) contains plenty of real-life dino bones, fossils—and some extremely long teeth.
You’ll also come face to face with a giant animatronic Tyrannosaurus rex—who is programmed to sense when human prey is near and “respond” in character. When he does, you can hear the shrieks of fear and delight all the way across the room.
A dizzyingly tall escalator takes you into a giant globe in the Earth Galleries, where there’s a choice of levels—and Earth surfaces—to explore. Don’t leave without checking out the earthquake simulation in Gallery 61.
The centerpiece of a major expansion is the Darwin Centre, which houses some of the (literally) millions of items they don’t have room to display, including “Archie,” a 28.3-foot giant squid.
Natural History Museum Tips
“Nature Live” is a program of free, informal talks given by scientists, covering a wildly eclectic range of subjects, usually at 2:30 (and on some days at 12:30) in the David Attenborough Studio in the Darwin Centre. The museum has an outdoor ice-skating rink from November to January, and a popular Christmas fair. Free, daily behind-the-scenes Spirit collection tours of the museum can be booked on the day—although space is limited, so come early. Recommended for children over eight years old. Got kids under seven with you? Check out the museum’s “Explorer Backpacks.” They contain a range of activity materials to keep the little ones amused, including a pair of binoculars and an explorer’s hat. They’re free, but you’ll need to provide a £25 credit-card deposit. | Cromwell Rd., South Kensington | SW7 5BD | 0207/942–5000 |