SIGHTS IN LONDON - London 2015 - page 145

Cost and Hours: Free, but £ 3 donation requested, fees for (optional) special exhibits,
daily 10:00-17:50, open later last Fri of the month, last entry 20 minutes before closing,
long tunnel leads directly from South Kensington Tube station to museum, tel. 020/
7942-5000, exhibit info and reservations tel. [phone], www.nhm.ac.uk .
Visiting the Museum: Use the helpful map ( £ 1 suggested donation) to find your way
through the collection. Exhibits are wonderfully explained, with lots of creative, inter-
active displays. Get oriented by talking with one of the many helpful guides scattered
throughout the museum, review the “What's on Today” board for special events and
tours, and note which sections are closed (according to the signs, these sections aren't
being “renovated,” but are “evolving”). While the dinosaur hall might have a long line,
everything else is wide open. Up the main stairs, above and behind Darwin, is the Treas-
ures Gallery, housing a rotating display of the museum's greatest hits, including a dodo
skeleton, moon rock, stuffed specimen of the extinct great auk, and the iguanodon tooth
that kicked off human awareness of dinosaurs.
Way over in the red zone, you can ride a dramatic escalator up one floor to experience
an earthquake. Don't miss the vault in the mineralogy section (top floor of the green zone),
with rare and precious stones, including a meteorite from Mars, the Aurora Pyramid of
Hope—displaying 296 diamonds showing their full range of natural colors—and this de-
scription of some microscopic cosmic diamonds: “These are the oldest things you will
ever see.”