London Coda 3 - Natural History Museum

We slept in. It was a good thing. We needed the rest. However, not five minutes up and about, we both received the same message from Qantas that our flight home would be delayed by twelve hours and that we would ultimately fly out of Heathrow not tomorrow evening (Saturday), but Sunday morning at 8.40. Three to four hours at the airport before the flight home immediately meant that we would need to stay a night in the airport hotel. So, off to Cafe Nero at Earl's Court we went to provide coffee and croissants while we organised accommodation. Thank goodness for the internet and smart phones. To complicate things, there will be industrial action starting that day which means that there will be no Tube out to the Heathrow. We would have to Uber it. So, we organised that too.

That left us with a lovely day ahead to do something new and nice. So, we decided we would go to the Natural History Museum, that extraordinary building in the heart of London built in the 1850s. If the building did not have any exhibits in it, you would still go, just to see the building. It is exquisite in different coloured brick work, tiles, and carved animals adorning every column, every floor piece, every section. There are stone animals everywhere you look. The floor is tiled in the best Roman fashion, the ceilings are painted in the best 'great house' fashion. It is a masterpiece of architecture and true beauty.

The collection is probably urivalled anywhere in the world. The vast and cavernous grand hall at the entrance has the skeleton of a blue whale hanging down over you, while at the top of a grand stair case which goes right and left at its apex sits a white marble over-sized Charles Darwin, looking out over the proceedings as if he were some deity.

In fact, there is a clear and unmistakable reference to religion and great cathedrals in this building. Grand arches not aisles, vast halls not naves, huge galleries not transepts, statues of scientists not saints. There is a quote by one of the scientists, I think it might have been Richard Owen, the guy who thought up the whole idea for this place, that this building was to be "a cathedral to science". So, it's no mistake or coincidence.

Chris and I enjoyed the parts of the exhibtion that we looked through: central hall, birds, minerals, the Vault where precious stones are kept (and no mention of monetary worth made at all), and marine life including the great whales. There is a model of a blue whale in this exhibit that I swear I find it hard to believe that it is true to size. Its length took up the whole gallery. Its girth was wider than a B Double truck, about two storeys high. The scientists tell us that the Blue Whale was and remains the largest creature ever to have inhabited the earth.

We stopped by the cafe to replenish and get off our feet, then had a cursory look through the dinosaur exhibit, but lots of people, plenty of screaming kids, not really our scene. Then off to the Museum shop for the obligatory touristy things that are always fun to purchase and that can only only be purchased in situ.

Lunch back in Earl's Court, a nap, and then dinner back down in the High Street, just some KFC tonight, but perched up in the window watching passers-by scurrying along in the London rain, the streets shiny and refelctive and romantic. This was our last 'free' night in London and the UK. I loved it. It's been a wonderful day together and a lovely evening.Read more