Still more British museums...

The Victoria and Albert Museum was  just stunning..... displays were well-planned and easy to see even with crowds..... and the rooms were just filled with collections and artwork dating from the year 700...... paintings and sculpture, furniture, silver and gold, precious jewelry.  Definitely a not-to-be-missed British gem of a museum. The outside of the building is very grand, and the entrance itself makes a statement that everything inside its doors is most important and much respected.

We went to the Science Museum because my husband was particularly interested in the section containing the very first computer, made by Charles Babbage.  We looked at other displays as well, which were all interesting and educational, but the Babbage computer is what brought us there. It's always over-whelming to me when original notebooks and drawings and blueprints are available for viewing, and they had those as well, in glass cases near Babbage's computer equipment..... they're referred to as his "scribbling books."

As a note... Charles Babbage (1791 - 1871) was Victorian England's most creative thinker... so impressive was this brilliant man that when he died, scientists studied his brain. The right side of his brain in on display in a glass jar in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Another museum we visited was the Tate... 500 years of British art is in that building. We had a guide which directed us to the highlights, and we by-passed the very modern displays (I have to wonder why they were in the Tate at all, considering that London has a Modern Art museum.  Every British artist you can think of is in this museum.... with rooms devoted to Turner, Constable, Sargeant.

We also went to the Natural History Museum, but didn't spend that much time there. After the Victoria & Albert and the Science Museum, the Natural History was a bit of a let-down.  Ditto for the Soane's Museum, which basically was a private home filled with dimly-lighted and haphazardly displayed furniture and artwork and architectural pieces.

The Portrait Gallery was a visual delight.... every British Royal you can think of is in there...... I expected to see more portraits of Queen Elizabeth II, so that was a little disappointing.  The portraits of Queen Elizabeth I were outstanding and mesmerizing.

The Musical Museum near Kew....... that was so nice that we went back a second time, to see everything again the day before we left for home.  I can still hear the music boxes playing, and I know that if we lived there, both my husband and I would offer to be volunteers in that wonderful place.  If you want a nice musical treat, do a search on a song called "The Umbrella Man," sung by Flanagan and Allen. We heard that song in the Musical Museum and we're both still humming it. My husband found it on the Internet, it's in both of our computers and we've been playing it every day since we got home.