One of the most fascinating days in our trip to London was the last one, when we visited the Imperial War Museum, part of the UK’s Imperial War Museums which include exhibitions in Duxford, North, Churchill War Rooms and the HMS Belfast anchored down river Thames.
Even if it’s not located downtown, the London Imperial War Museum is a must see for boys, especially those like me who like to watch war movies all day long. I know war is bad, but I can’t help it. Anyway, as with most important museums in London the admission is free into this one, but some special exhibitions may cost more.
London Imperial War Museum – official site with special events info and visiting hours
Before you enter the museum you’re greeted by two enormous 15-inch British naval guns that lie as a testimony to the World War II war effort to keep the Germans out of United Kingdom’s soil.
Once you actually get inside you enter the Large Exhibits room where you can look at airplanes hanging from the ceiling, the first A-Bomb, the V2 rocket build by Wernher Von Braun, the same scientist that took humanity to the Moon (that’s an irony, right?), small submarines and of course tanks. The main sections of London’s Imperial War museum are dedicated to the first and second world war, the Holocaust, a history centre and conflicts since 1945. If you have time and go under the main floor you can take a deeper look at the equipment soldiers used during those conflicts including weapons, gear, clothing and survival kits.
Unfortunately we didn’t had time to go through all those amazing historic artifacts of the past because of a fire alarm that took us to a nearby coffee shop, but we did managed to see the impressive replica of a British house from World War II that depicted the conditions in which people lived under constant air bombardment threat and a gallery dedicated to children’s war effort in the same period. So even if you’re just a history fanatic, the London Imperial War museum is a must visit place.
Here are a couple of pictures we’ve took inside the London Imperial War Museum, some with the weapons that fascinated me in my childhood:
