National History Museum - London

National History Museum

London August 2014 

National History Museum

I love London, I love everything about it, well apart from the arrogant so and sos. 

I love the cafes, the food, the range of italian restaurants, the small side road shops that sell not one thing the same, the museums, the history and oh the shopping. 

I love the shopping. 

But on this trip we went on the tube to South Kensington and went to the National History museum. 

I recommend having a free day and spending the whole day here as unfortunate for us, Me and John arrived just past 4.30 when the museum closes at 6.00pm.

The main hall

I cannot begin to explain how vast and big this place is, It is simply incredible. 

So much time and detail has gone into building this spectacular museum. I wish we had time to see everything but in an hour and a half we barely covered one third of the building and that was very fast walking. We sadly missed the david Attenborough show which was super sad too. boohoo.

The main hall, Me looking very interested.

The good thing also is that it costs NOTHING, yep nothing.

All you pay for is some of the exhibitions and shows you want to attend these are about £9.00 a person depending on what shows you wanted to see. 

A very tourist picture.

My favourite bits where of course the dinosaurs, I have wanted to see this for a while and it was Johns favourite too. I love history and this was really interesting. Lots of skeletons and facts, and very big moving fake dinosaurs for the kids. Another thing I would recommend it not doing this in the school holidays. It was packed, which made it very difficult to get round. 

Dinosaurs skeletons 

John and me going round the dinosaurs exhibitions 

Such a nice picture of john,and the mammal display.

Super happy man, What I thought was really cool was the Mammals part. I was amazed at how big polar bears are and brown bears. You have these huge halls which you walk through with just loads of stuffed animals and it really is quite the eye opener. I never ever imagined that dolphins and other animals would be that big. 

Top left is one of the bigger halls where the Blue whale and over sea creatures are on display. You can walk around the side and they tell you so many facts. One interesting one is that is shows the different type of teeth the mammoths had.

The huge polar bear, Me admiring the horns to a Irish Stag and the Hippo

Me very amused. 

After being told the museum was closing we headed off down to Exhibitions road to a lovely italian place where we settled and had a very and I will say VERY bitter lemonade. I wish I knew the place of this, cos they did the most amazing cakes. I was good and did not try any being full from lunch. 

John outside the italian cafe in South Kensington,

It was such a lovely time, I will go again and spend about the whole day there. Be so worth it. 

Bucket list - Trip to Paris

PARIS 

This was a spur of the moment idea of my mums, and what a brilliant idea it was. I had four hours notice before we had to go. We left at about 7 at night from Cheltenham made about 4 stops at different service stations then got to folkestone at around 11.00 at night, Of course the euro tunnel itself over lasted 35 minutes. I can't say I enjoyed it,for me it was my two worst fears rolled into one. The thought of being under deep water and then being in a small space for half an hour. Not my idea of fun but it needed to be done if we wanted to drive in france. 

We got through to calais, The stopped off. We then managed to drive through paris at six in the morning. Paris, six in the morning is worst traffic than London rush hour. I refuse to have ever point blank drive through London. But driving through this was crazy, So many lorries and the rules, The french drive blind! From paris we went to Oleans, so unmans, Boussac, Then to vouvray and then to Paris. 

I will write about the other places I visited but for now I am going to start with my favourite Paris. 

We had such beautiful weather when we where over France, Reaching up to 25 degrees, 

This was on the drive through Paris. 

The french do have some beautiful architecture. 

And then we got in view of the Effiel tower, Bare in mind we could only spend about 2 hours in paris due to the fact this wasn't planned. And we had to be in calais in six hours. 

The Views where outstanding, I have always got told that Paris in particular was a very unclean dirty city. But it was as beautiful as I thought it would be. I could happily live here. 

The park next to the eiffel tower, Now the thing I find astonishing is the fact we managed to park 2 minutes away from the eiffel tower. Just on the road down from it. Below is a picture of my mum, she has only been Paris once when she was younger so we where both looking forward to it. 

My mum and me 

And of course the creme de la creme, The Eiffel tower, with the parking it only gave us just over an hour. The lines to actually go up there was too long to wait. 

The gardens that surrounded the tower. Below is a picture of my mum and her husband martin.

This is one of my favourite pictures of the park, They must have one hell of a gardener. 

We after looking at the eiffel tower decided to go through a walk around the city, So many cafes and little quaint restaurants, of course the closer to the tower the more expensive the drinks and food. 

After all that driving and walking we decided to stop for something to drink, I had the pink tower only felt since I was in paris for the first time this was needed. I then just had a chicken sandwich while my mother opted for the yummiest omelette I think I have ever had. yes, I did swipe a bite. 

My lunch at the Cafe'

The final bit of paris, was to see the Arc de triumph which we did, I cannot rant on enough about how the french drive. So going round this momentum, they being about 6 exits and about 9 make shift lanes. No lines. I cant believe they had no lines it was a simple case of follow the leader and hope you get out to where you want to go. It was hilarious, don't get me wrong. My mum screaming at martin trying to give directions, people almost crashing into us, people cutting other people off so they have to slam their breaks down. I have never experienced anything quite like driving around this. However the statue  itself is beautiful. I managed to get a few pictures in. 

This was just my first glimst into Paris, I will go back! I think a long weekend is needed to see everything in. 

Have you been ?

Lauren.