On the last day of our stay in London we had a tough time choosing between two possible sights: the British Museum, and Hampton Court Palace.
We knew each of these would need a day to do them justice; it was agony picking just one!
In our minds, the mummies and other treasures from Ancient Egypt were the main attraction at the British Museum, something we were both interested in seeing.
Hampton Court Palace was really only on my list, thanks to years of reading historical novels set in the time of King Henry the Eighth and thereabouts. Plus, I wanted to check out the maze!
So, the British Museum it was. (Yes, I regret missing out on Hampton Court … it’s top of the list for next time!).
To be perfectly frank, I was a little disappointed. I’m guessing that like most museums, they can’t display everything at once and so it wasn’t as big a collection of Ancient Egyptian artefacts as I’d hoped. Plus, there were a million school kids making it difficult to really have a good look, let alone get any decent photos. (The other challenge was getting a photo of items in glass cases, without reflections. Yup, definitely not a professional photographer – just a snap happy tourist 😉 ).
I’ll let our snapshots from the British Museum tell the rest of the story!
We enjoyed checking out the sarcophogus section – what is the plural of sarcophagus anyway – sarcophagi? But were disappointed only to see a couple of mummies. Maybe they have to be kept away from light and crowds to better preserve them?
We saw Egyptian art and artefacts galore. Of course the Ancient Egyptians loved cats too and even mummified them (Miss Fleur would be horrified)!
But basically it was all heiroglyphics to me …
Now just in case you think the British Museum is only about Ancient Egypt, we wandered through a few of the other galleries, where we saw the Rosetta Stone, displays of clocks through the ages, the Lewis chess set, and this gorgeous old cash register:
Never heard of the Lewis chessmen? No, we hadn’t either. These medieval pieces were re-discovered on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland in 1831. The game of chess is clearly centuries old!
The Rosetta Stone:
We finished off our visit with a delicious cream tea …
… which I ended up wearing on my face. Just can’t take me anywhere LOL!
So which one would you have chosen – the British Museum, or Hampton Court Palace?!
Gee Janet – what a tough decision you had to make. Either way, you’d think you were missing out on the other. I would probably go to Hampton Court, but then I would be wondering what was at the British Museum too… decision decision! Glad you got a nice cup of tea afterwards 🙂
If only we’d had just one more day!
I would love to visit this museum as I’m infatuated with Egyptian artefacts. It looks like this was a winner!
You could get lost in there for days I reckon Kathy!
I’ve been to Hampton Court Palace so I’d choose the British Museum. Your photos of the Egyptian artefacts reminded me of our visit to the fabulous Cairo museum in 2009. That’s THE place to go to see lots of mummies and ancient Egyptian artefacts! Pity it’s not a good country to visit these days! I bought a lovely Egyptian cat in a blue stone during our trip. Your photos came out well considering the problem with the glass cases!
You will have to show me your Egyptian cat next time I visit! Yes, Egypt is definitely on my bucket list 🙂