London Museums and Galleries

Museums

These are free though special exhibitions and features such as IMAX theatre tickets may cost more

All of these have excellent facilities for families. With kids, take along picnic food to enjoy in areas set aside within the musuems when they start to flag. There are the usual activity bags available for children if you find the idea of wandering around on your own just a bit dauntin and remember that some of these are vast collections.

Natural History Museum – Dinosaurs galore though my kids have always enjoyed the insect section and mammals area best.

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/index.html

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Science Museum – We’ve always enjoyed the  interactive section, the Launchpad after wandering around the space exploration area.

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/

British Museum – Egyptian mummies, the Rosetta Stone and the Elgin marbles are amongst some of the highlights.

http://www.britishmuseum.org/

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Victoria and Albert Museum – With artifacts from around the world, my best memories are of exploring the Chinese Collection with the help of one of the kids activity bags. We’ve seen quite a few excellent exhibitions, notably fashion and textiles.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/

Galleries

National Gallery

This is a wonderful, world class museum full of astonishing artworks from around the world.We especially enjoy the later galleries covering 18th to 20th century works by Canaletto, Goya, Turner, Constable, Ingres, Degas, Cézanne, Monet and Van Gogh

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/

Tate Modern & Tate Britain

Snow Storm - Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth exhibited 1842 by Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775-1851This is my favourite gallery in London for exhibitions, and since membership also covers the excellent Tate Britain, with it’s lovely Turner and pre-raphaelites and both have excellent restaurants attached there is never a month I haven’t visited.

Royal Academy

Every year there is a Summer Exhibition made up of the contributions of members of the Royal Academy which is endlessly fascinating to see, a real picture of what artist are currently working on and about.

https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/

Wallace Collection

This is much smaller than the others but in a London townhouse manages to fit 25 galleries of French 18th-century painting, furniture and porcelain with superb Old Master paintings and a world class armoury.

http://www.wallacecollection.org/