The British Museum

The British Museum is one of those places where you could easily spend an entire London vacation wandering around. On my first trip to London, after a nine hour flight, a couple of hours wandering around Gatwick and making our way to Russel Square-where we were staying, we stumbled into the British Museum. It was a huge place, with giant ceilings and massive exhibits. We were impressed and often awe struck by the things we saw. It was a bit funny to see giant Totem Poles in London.

The British Museum is on many Top Ten lists of things to see in London, and well it should be. With objects as diverse as Roman Temples to a stone head from Easter Island, there is a little bit of everything here. The British Museum is the world's oldest public museum and is free to boot-except for special exhibits. One of my favorite areas was the British Museum Egypt, with it's large collection of mummies, including one of a cat. The artifacts seemed endless as we wandered from room to room, it was wonderful, but jet lag was doing us in. We would have to go back later to see Ancient Greece, Natural History, and all the art that fills the British Museum.

Thanks to the internet, you no longer have to travel to London to buy a souvenir from the British Museum. The British Museum Shop Online sells all kinds of art prints and reproductions of their collection. One of the many silly things they sell is British Museum Fudge and a British Museum White Chocolate Mummy.

The British Museum website is a clean and easy site to navigate around. The many collections are there for the browsing, so that you can decide before you go what you would most like to see in person. It is pretty much impossible to see all that the British Museum has to offer in one visit, so if it just one of many stops on your London holiday, than you need to the most of your time inside.

The current hot ticket is for 'The First Emperor, China's Terracotta Army' exhibition showing at the British Museum, which is now sold out until 6th April 2008. Still, there is a lot to see besides the featured shows. You can't go wrong spending a few hours, or days, at The British Museum.