Imperial war museum

The Imperial War Museum during one Saturday in June 2010, was conducting an information session for those who have had family members who served during the two world wars. On that weekend I was actually going to be in London, so I planned my day to eventually visit the museum during my tour of the city. I was actually going to take the tour bus across the bridge while I was at Westminster, but the bus was held up by protesters protesting about the Gaza strip.  The bus tour was a hop on hop off tour so there was no problem getting back on later in the day. I decided the quickest was to the museum was to follow the map and walk. I did want to visit Greenwich at the time and find the museum later but I had found that the trip on the boat took around and hour and half each way so I decided that would not be a good idea.

When finding the museum and entering, my camera decided that was the time to inform me that it needed batteries. I had searched my bag and had found my spare batteries had been left in my hotel room. I did visit the counter, where they had the stall for those interested in their military ancestors who served. I asked them about how some records couldn’t be found due to the fire in the second war and I had some picture that I wanted to be identified as I have no idea what rank or even brigade the person I was after was in. I was directed to a room where they had those sorts of records and was also handed information especially their website. I told them at the time I couldn’t as I was time poor and did not have the time at that moment but would come back at a later date to visit their reading room.

Before exploring some of the displays, there was a need to find some food and purchase some fresh batteries from the gift shop. After eating a pie at the museum café, I wanted to visit several of the displays which I had only seen in books. One of these was the V2 rocket used by the Germans during the Second World War. At first glance the museum did seem to be cluttered and cramped, this could be because the displays were actually vehicles like the tanks and the aircraft suspended from the ceiling. The other explanation can be that I was tired and running around the city when I had only been in the country for several days. I did know that I wanted to return some other time when I was able to explore the exhibitions at my pleasure.

The next place on my list to visit was actually Temple church which was in the Da Vinci code. This time I took the underground instead of walking around as my feet would get sore and it was actually a bit far to even get that far on foot.