A Night at the Museum(s)

Great Court of the British Museum. This awe-inspiring space is the largest covered square in Europe.

One of the few great things in the UK is that national museums are free (well, funded by tax payers). It does make one wonder if the locals are ultimately paying foreign tourists to visit their museum, since there's never a shortage of tourists in these places.

Anyway, here's a collection of pictures from three great museums in London: British Museum — dedicated to human culture and history; Natural History Museum — exhibits everything related to natural science; and Tate Britain — collects British art from the classical to the contemporary.

The Age of Enlightenment, the period in the 17th and 18th century is a period where European philosophers and thinkers question traditional beliefs and dogma, and attempt to reason the world with science and rational analysis. The Enlightenment Room of the British Museum collects over tens of thousands of objects produced in this period, from books to sculptures to science apparatus; it is a fascinating room that tells the story of how we started the Age of Reason.

British Museum at Night.

Main Hall of the Natural History Museum. This museum is so huge that one can probably spend a week here without reading an information plaque more than once.

The star of the main Hall, Dippy the Diplodocus! Apparently Dippy is to be replaced by a blue whale skeleton in 2017. This is causing a bit of a commotion, since Dippy has been around for quite a while (35 years). Although the twist is that apparently most people don't realise that Dippy isn't a real dinosaur...

Natural History Museum illuminated at night.

Tate Britain. It is a lot smaller compared to the National Gallery, and a good part of the collection are works of J. M. W. Turner, apparently a controversial figure in the art world.

Tate Britain, spiral staircase.

Tate Britain, dome.