Pet fish at the Moscow Sea Aquarium at Chistye Prudy

Sometimes Mama wonders why she pays large amounts of money to get into dedicated animal experience venues when we can be endlessly amused by the hamsters and goldfish at the local pet shop. Not to mention the bearded dragons.

This is presumably the thinking behind the Moscow Sea Aquarium at Chistye Prudy, which is, basically, a largish pet fish shop. With extra tanks round the back you can pay to go and see separately.

Tropical fish Moscow Sea Aquarium Chistye Prudy

As a result, the fish viewing area is not particularly styled. The tanks are simply tanks. They have not been turned into a replica of the Amazon made from fibreglass and low lighting. They are no floor to ceiling underwater experiences, which surround you with water and marine wildlife. They also do not play you soothing music as you trundle round.

There are no giant killer whales or seals or anything which requires a large amount of space and the willingness to ignore people who suggest that perhaps keeping killer whales in captivity is a bit un 21st century.

There are some (modestly sized) sharks though! And rays under the glass floor. That’s pretty cool.

Sharks Moscow Sea Aquarium Chistye Prudy

The Moscow Sea Aquarium also has a pretty decent selection of brightly coloured tropical fish, seahorses, a few jellyfish, and some rather astonishing snakey eely things. Also piranhas.

And crabs.

Crab Moscow Sea Aquarium Chistye Prudy

And this rather excellent turtle. It’s an alligator snapping turtle, in case you didn’t know, and actually the reason why I got to go to this aquarium. Animal Mad Big Brother was watching another of his many endless wildlife programmes about this, and remembered that they have one here.

Snapping Alligator Turtle Moscow Sea Aquarium Chistye Prudy

And although I was a bit taken aback by the relatively small size of the place, in truth, I can get a bit bored in the bigger aquariums. The Moscow Sea Aquarium had the perfect number of aquatic displays for me to be pleased by the variety without testing my patience. Despite being a bit disappointed there were no real crocodiles.

Plus, it is warm and moist and tropical inside and Mama’s glasses steamed up and everything, which reassures you that it isn’t just your average pet shop. Luckily they have a makeshift cloakroom in a broom cupboard next to the water filters, so we did not have to swelter our way around the tanks in our winter weather grade layers.

At the end there are some drawing stations with fish-themed pictures to colour in. Always welcome, are colouring in opportunities. We did five. Each. Mama does occasionally also wonder why she takes us out at all when we end up being most enthusiastic about doing all the things we could quite happily get on with at home while she puts her feet up and noodles around on the Internet.

All in all, if you want to kill an hour or so in a child-friendly way on a walk round the Garden Ring pedestrian boulevard that encircles the centre of Moscow, this isn’t a bad way to do it. Plenty of little coffee shops, skating opportunities, cat cafes and other minor items of interest to occupy you nearby too.

It’s also cheaper than dragging the kids out to the back of VDNH to the expensive if considerably more glamorous and extensive Mosqvarium. But the Moscow Sea Aquarium at Chistye Prudy is a strictly amateur affair, as aquariums go, so manage your expectations accordingly, and be warned that the price is perhaps a little on the high side for what it is. A hangover from the days when it was the only fish game in town, perhaps.

Gotta feed the underwater animals though! And obviously if you are actually shopping for pet fish, this place is presumably a cut above you average pet shop in that department. Not that Mama would know. We have had fish and if Mama is honest she was quite pleased to abandon them in the UK (to a good home) because fish require a lot of cleaning out, she found. So she is not in the market for any more.

Mama is not a good parent to a budding naturalist really. We do have a budgie though. Which Animal Mad Big Brother mucks out.

More information

The Moscow Sea Aquarium’s website (in Russian).

This is what the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has to say about freshwater aquarium equipment.

Address: Chistye Prudy Bulvar, 14/3, 101000

Opening: Every day 10am to 8pm.

Admission: Adults: 400 roubles in the week, 500 roubles at weekends; kids 3 – 12 years old: 250 roubles in the week, 300 roubles at the weekend. There are is a tour you can sign up to (and pay for) too, and you can also pay extra to see them feed the sharks.

Getting there: The nearest Metro stations are Chistye Prudy/ Turgenevskaya/ Sretensky Bulvar (red line/ orange line/ light green line), or Kitai Gorod (orange line/purple line). It’s a good ten minute walk from either, but a very pleasant one.

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The Moscow Sea Aquarium at Chistye Prudy is a small family friendly fish filled attraction in the centre of Moscow

MummyTravels

Russian Underground Rock, Naket Wimin, and the Moscow Museum of Modern Art

After being trapped in small rooms on a muggy May evening at the Bulgakov Museums with a lot of sweaty people as part of the Moscow Museum Night, where museums and galleries stay open until midnight and entrance is free, Mama and Papa were quite up for a walk. Which is how they, and my Treacherous Big Brother (who had abandoned me at home to go gadding about the city with our parents) came to be passing one of the locations of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art on their way to the museum of the poet Alexander Pushkin’s life and times. And so they decided to nip in and see what that was all about.

Half full of things which 8-year-old boys shouldn’t see, according to the woman who doled out the tickets.

Naturally, that meant that my family headed straight to those parts of the gallery.

In her youth Mama used to listen to scruffy guitar bands she is now banned from singing along to in the car. When we are teenagers, she is doubtless going to be smug about the fact that, back then, very few of them had much play on the radio beyond a few late night John Peel sessions. So she has jumped around at lot at gigs in a fair number of small, grimy, hot concert halls, and outdoor festivals where the toilets were terrible. She is particularly insistent that it wasn’t just the headliners she was interested in, but the support act of the support act. Nothing more unbearable than a 19-year-old who thinks they have found counterculture, even twenty *cough splutter* years on.

Personally, I prefer listening to [insert name of the latest poppy girl music sensation on BBC radio 1]. Mama despairs of me [and also is old so has no idea].

When she came to Russia, however, she discovered that she and all her cohort back home were comprehensively out-cooled by everyone listening to Russian rock in the 80s, which is to say Papa and his friends.

Zeitgeist Borisov Moscow Museum of Modern Art

This is because rock music in the Soviet Union was, if not actively banned, officially controlled and improvisation discouraged, and most of the bands performing it were therefore part of a truly underground music scene.

What this meant is that these musicians couldn’t get their music recorded in professional studios, certainly had no airtime anywhere at all, and were extremely limited in the places where they could perform. Gigs in people’s flats were A Thing. Arrests were not unheard of. And the rockers were poor, taking jobs such as caretakers, street sweepers and factory workers to satisfy the need for everyone in the Soviet Union to have an officially recognised job.

The hotbeds of this clearly seditious activity were Moscow, but even more so, St Petersburg. And, oddly, a city way out east, which you can read about in this comprehensive guide to Yekaterinburg by a local.

But word and homemade cassettes got about all over the Soviet Union, in much the same way that samizdat manuscripts were shared of suppressed writings.

So when Perestroika came along, and the Russian underground rock scene was allowed more exposure, actual performance space and bands finally got recording contracts, some of the musicians became extremely well-known, extremely quickly. And some didn’t and were still subject to low-level hassle and obstruction.

Now you might be expecting that, given how repressed they were, and that they are sometimes credited with an actual role in the downfall of the Soviet Union, these people spent a lot of their time singing rousing political protest songs.

In this you would be wrong. No need for any of that when your very existence is sticking two fingers up at Lenin. Neither did they come up with a radical new musical style. But lyrics were considered very important. No meaningless drivel wrapped around a banging hook for your Soviet underground rock bands. Just profoundly poetical explorations of the human condition. With, if you were a punk band, some careful swearing.

Which, to be honest, means that the full glory of the music is often lost on Westerners. See what you think.

Or read this review of underground Russian rock band Krematori (yes, it means exactly what you think).

Now, you might be wondering what this has to do with my Treacherous Big Brother being warned away from some of the exhibitions in the Moscow Museum of Modern Art.

Well, the thing is that one of the exhibitions was entitled (in Mama’s head) ‘Mild naughtiness with Soviet icons in the early 90s’ (but actually Zeitgeist by Sergei Borisov). Lots photos of people doing handstands under the giant statue of the Worker and the Communal Farm Worker, sort of thing.

Handstands on Soviet statues Borisov MMOMA

And lumped in with this, lots of photos of Russian underground rock bands and their followers.

Victor Tsoi Russian underground rock Borisov Moscow Museum of Modern Art

Shocking, huh? Might do all sorts of terrible things to an unformed mind. My Treacherous Big Brother’s fashion sense alone could be ruined forever.

Zeitgeist Borisov MMOMA

Actually, Mama thinks it was probably the photos of young women who were without clothes that was probably the problem. Rather than, you understand, the fact that they were wearing a fur hat and covered in hammer and sickle stickers in a blatantly subversive act.

It was definitely the fact that the next exhibition was a collection of photos of a nudist colony that had the docents frowning when Mama wandered in behind my Treacherous (and quite thrilled) Big Brother.

Mama felt obliged to cover his eyes and march him straight out again, although in reality, she thinks that pictures of people of all shapes and sizes going about barbecuing and playing volleyball and so on in a perfectly matter of fact manner is considerably more innocent and suitable for small children than any number of classical paintings of young women wearing diaphanous scarf clothing, baring her breasts while staring provocatively at the painter (he hopes).

Luckily the top floor was an entirely uncontroversial exhibition of static film making. You might think that the point of using film over mere photography is so you can capture actual movement, but Mama is here to tell you that there is something quite mesmerizing about watching people fish.

Anyway, a bit of a poke round the website reveals that the Moscow Museum of Modern Art has not one but five locations in Moscow, so we shall have to go and keep trying to figure out quite how the MMOMA is different from the Multimedia Art Museum, which also features exhibitions of mostly photography and film. Unless it is indeed that they put all of the exhibitions that you might not necessarily want an under ten to go and see in the space without the Lego in the foyer. But I can’t say that the family made a thorough investigation of the gallery on this occasion, being anxious to get on with the museum going marathon that they had embarked on.

But that is a story for another day.

And if you want to read about another form of underground music in the USSR, read this post about how they used to burn banned records onto actual X-rays to smuggle them about.

Grebenshikov Russian underground rock Borisov Moscow Museum of Modern Art

More information

The art gallery’s website (for Ermolaevsky 17).

This is what the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has to say about how to make lettered rock.

Address: 17 Ermolaevsky Pereulok, Moscow, 123001

Opening: Monday – Sunday 12 noon – 8pm (9pm on Thursdays). Closed every third Monday in the month.

Admission: 350 roubles per adult, 150 roubles kids over seven, kids under seven free.

Getting there: Mama has no idea. She was just following Papa. Somewhere between Mayakovskaya metro (green line), the Bulgakov Museum(s) and the Arbat? Just look at a map, will ya? We gave you the address.

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Wander Mum

Moskvarium Aquarium, Moscow

Mama was outraged when Papa took us to the aquarium Moskvarium, Moscow’s newest animal attraction, without her over the summer. Particularly as he managed to lose my Adorable Big Brother half way round. Serves Papa right for clearly not reading my account of London’s Sealife Aquarium in which I specifically warn people of the dangers of such dark, packed but fatally fascinating animal attractions. But the main issue was what a wonderful story for the blog Mama missed!

So when we had completed a grim-faced march across the exhibition complex VDNH in even for Russia unseasonably early horizontal frozen sleet on our way to what turned out to be recently closed exhibition of animatronic dinosaurs, she didn’t need much convincing to nip round the corner to the giant blue box covered with bubble pictures instead. Mama loves VDNH, but she is forced to admit that in the colder months is it possibly a bit too extensive when you are actually trying to get somewhere specific, especially when that somewhere specific is unavailable.

Moskvarium Moscow

Much of Moscow apparently considers Mama a bit of a nelly though judging by the constant stream of people heading towards the Moskvarium ahead of us, behind us and even as we were leaving quite a bit later in the day. Of course, Moskvarium is a great name. My Adorable Big Brother was amused by it for ages after he worked out the clever smashing together of its location and function. No wonder people are prepared to suit up their young in the heavy-duty snow gear and head out for a lengthy trek to get to it.

Not that Moscovites need much convincing to get out the heavy-duty snow gear for their kids. I feel decidedly underdressed, even if autumn has returned and it is 15 degrees centigrade outside.

Anyway, let us return to the Moskvarium, where there are fish.

Fish at the Moskvarium Moscow

A lot of fish, as this is now Europe’s largest aquarium. The Moskvarium is arranged in what I am inaccurately going to describe as a rectangular semi-circle, which basically goes fish fish fish fish fish fish fish fish fish fish fish, and then you get to a large central hall with the more interesting aquatic livestock and then it’s fish fish fish fish fish fish fish fish fish fish fish fish all the way to the finale of sharks and seals at the end.

To be honest, I find the fish a bit boring, especially after the first five hundred tanks. I allowed Mama a few moments of awe at the toothy looking pikes near the entrance, but then I started agitating to get to the crocodiles.

Crocodile two at the Moskvarium Moscow

Crocodiles are cool. There they hang, only their cunning little eyes peeping out above the water, but underneath, underneath there is this great long dinosaur body with a giant tail.

Crocodile at the Moskvarium Moscow

I know this because one of the advantages of having the space of what I am told is the largest aquarium in Europe is that unlike the London Sealife aquarium you can afford to really make a meal of a number of different habitats rather than relying on having one really good big tank and making visitors squint through relatively small windows off the sort of narrow corridors that do not encourage visitors to linger and get a really good look at everything else. The crocodile cage in the Moskvarium is a giant affair housed in a giant room where the only thing stopping the water and the toothy predator from sploshing all over you is a tall thin sheet of glass.

Turtle at the Moskvarium Moscow

You can also sit and sip coffee and get a snack next to what will be some dugongs when they have arrived, which they haven’t yet. Now that’s a view. Will be a view.

On the other hand, Mama would say that when it comes to what she thinks should be the deep-sea showstopper full of sharks and pretty fish there doesn’t seem to be much depth to them, which turns it into mere rectangular water cage rather than conveying the proper impression that you really have a window onto the ocean. The designers lack the desperate imagination of Sealife in London here in fact. Possibly the excitement of having so much space to play with – this is Europe’s largest aquarium apparently – has has caused them to be complacent,  although I also think Mama has spent too many Saturday mornings glued to the reality TV show Tanked! about the large gentlemen who install aquariums across America (much more thrilling than you might expect. Say Mama and my Wonderful Big Brother). She has become jaded.

Shark tank at the Moskvarium Moscow

Or possibly, she had just had enough by the time we came to that point. I know I had.

Despite the fact that the last set of tropical tanks with the most colourful and attractive fish so far also give you fun to climb knobbly plastic rocks so you can scramble up to view them, my fish appreciation capacity had completely run out just before we got to that section. The Moskvarium, being Europe’s biggest (did I mention that already?), is about twenty fish tanks too large for me. This wouldn’t have been a problem, really, except that my Adorable Big Brother was just getting into his stride. The last couple of thousand metres of our trip pleased nobody, but I am louder, so I won.

Lion fish at the Moskvarium Moscow

As far as my Adorable Big Brother is concerned they save the best for last though and that is the seals. From Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest lake and surely one of the great eco-tourism destinations out east in Siberia. Personally, I think one seal looks much like another. Perhaps these ones do seem somewhat rounder than your average sea-lion, but equally as obliging then it comes to rolling around in the water, splashing each other and performing somersaults. My Adorable Big Brother was transfixed. I lay on a handy beanbag, stared at the ceiling in fished out apathy and ate prunes.

But!

Even I perked up when just as we were about to leave, feeding time happened, because feeding time at the Moskvarium seal enclosure is like a mini show, with pairs of seals teamed up with a keeper who combines slipping them their tidbits with practising all their best tricks. Very very cool.

Of course, this may just be last-ditch advertising for the shows before you leave. Mama suspects that’s where you get to see the killer whales, the dolphins and the other big aquatic mammals properly, as the viewing into bits of their tanks don’t give you much of a view, especially of the dolphins.

Of course, this probably means they have a decent amount of space to hide from us in, but I am four and I do not care about this.

Mama is a bit unclear as to how you get to go to the shows (buying a ticket would probably help, yeah, Mama?) because she didn’t seem to see any signs pointing the way while we were there, which is good for her bank account, but terrible for her curiosity. Luckily my Adorable Big Brother has not twigged to the extra entertainment possibility on offer yet, but as soon as he does I expect he will be on translation duties as we attempt to track the auditorium down.

In the meantime we were stuck with standing in front of the large window with the view of the largely empty tank, waiting for the killer whales to drift past. And waiting, and waiting, and waiting. And waiting and waiting and waiting.

Killer Whale at the Moskvarium Moscow

And then we went to play with the handling tanks.

The largely unsupervised handling tanks.

The largely unsupervised handling tanks where you can stick your arms in right up to the shoulder to chase the fish and the rays around. The rays are great! Very slow-moving!

Mama considers this wrong for all sorts of reasons, and after we had stood in the toilets with our sleeves under a blow dryer for a bit she marched us severely over to the colouring in wall, which was surprisingly popular with all sizes of people. Perhaps I was not the only one who was having fish processing problems in Europe’s largest aquarium?

It could be people processing problems. There were a lot of them there by the time we were getting towards the end. Unless you are used to London crowds everywhere, in which case you will be wondering where everybody is.

But back to the fish! The Moskvarium is definitely worth a look, especially with older children who have more stamina than I do for a trek around what may be Europe’s largest aquarium. Get there early to avoid the crowds, and say hi to the crocodiles from me.

More information

The Moskvarium’s website (in Russian because the English version is pretty minimal. This is what Google translate is for).

This is what the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has to say about the African Dwarf Crocodile.

Address: VDNH Estate 119, Prospect Mira, Moscow, 129223.

Opening: 10am to 10pm, everyday except the last Monday of every month.

Admission: At weekends and on holidays, adults and children over 120cm: 1000 roubles (£10) and children up to 120cm: 600 roubles (£6). Weekdays, it’s 600 roubles and 400 roubles respectively. There are family tickets available too.

By metro: From VDNH (on the orange line) you need to walk through the VDNH exhibition park. This is quite a walk. The Moskvarium is in the same area as the Polytechnic Museum, behind the giant space rocket.

There are also trams and such which stop at VDNH.

By other means: Dunno.

ANIMALTALES

Wander Mum

The Horniman Museum, London

Mama likes to think that my Superdooper Big Brother is *her* son, although the animal obsession is all his own. But every now and again, he reminds her that Papa also had something to do with it.

One of those times was when she realised that he is a born collector.

It always puzzled her when, after she had given him control of the car boot sale toy budget, he would pass over that snazzy looking lion in favour of this motheaten sorry specimen of an armadillo. Eventually she realised it is because my Superdooper Big Brother is filling in the gaps in an increasingly vast collection of the animal kingdom in soft toy form, currently occupying half the bedroom and most of the space down the back of the sofa.

Mama thinks that he would really have preferred to be born in the Victorian age. This is because his ambition is to have a live animal museum. ‘You mean a zoo?’ Mama corrected. ‘No,’ said my Superdooper Big Brother. ‘You can’t see the animals properly in zoos. I will have them in those small glass museum cases, but alive, because that’s more interesting.’

He also wants to hunt the animals for his museum down himself. Look, he’s six. He’ll develop empathy later. Mama hopes. He is also quite keen on becoming an assassin of rhino poachers, so that’s something.

Anyway. Mama thinks that both my Superdooper Big Brother and Papa would have got on very well with Mr Horniman of the Horniman Museum, a Victorian tea trader and avid collector who eventually realised that he had filled so many of his rooms with carefully labelled stuff that he might as well be living in a museum, and so promptly did. Or rather, didn’t, because at about that point his wife insisted they move out (‘Either the collection goes or we do,’ were the exact words, apparently. Mama sympathises. She also wonders if Mrs Horniman and Mrs Soane had a support group).

The Horniman Museum

Obviously what my Superdooper Big Brother appreciates most are the large number of stuffed animals. The Horniman Museum is particularly proud of its walrus, but Mama really likes the way many of the cases are designed to actually teach viewers something rather than just serve as curiosity cabinets. She and my Superdooper Big Brother, for example, can spend rather more time than I think is strictly necessary looking at the cases about how animals defend themselves and identifying the method each little group of animals used. There are labels, Mama! Yes, says Mama smugly, but my Superdooper Big Brother hasn’t quite twigged to the advantages of being able to read yet and has to work it out from pure observation.

The Natural History Room at the Horniman

Of course, she is also approving of the way that the Horniman Museum supports understanding of the concept of evolution too. In fact, until she discovered the Darwin Museum in Moscow, the Horniman was her go to museum every time she felt he needed a top up.

Evolution of the horse at the Horniman

Attached to the natural history room is a hands on kids area, which is also very well designed – you can draw stuff, listen to bird calls and the game about identifying trees is, Mama thinks, almost unique as a button pushing opportunity which is both doable for people my age and also gets a point about classification across while you play it. Plus! In case you have been driven mad by the fact that is forbidden to fondle the extremely tactile exhibits next door, there are a couple of examples of the taxidermists’ art that you are allowed to stroke here too.

The highlight of the room is the ACTUAL LIVE ANIMALS (emphasis my Superdooper Big Brother’s). Bees, to be exact, and tiny tiny mice, both in cases small enough to make it to my Superdooper Big Brother’s own future museum, although the bees seem to be able to escape at will down a transparent tube.

That’s not all the animal action at the Horniman Museum though! There is also a reasonably priced aquarium in the basement which has a varied selection of small to medium sized fish from all around the world. And jellyfish. Also, butterflies. My Superdooper Big Brother likes the fish with the legs best. I like all of the tanks that come down to the floor, which is sadly not all of them. They do have little boxes you can carry about and stand on to get to the higher up ones though, which is almost as much fun as the fish themselves.

But. The aquarium has all but been eclipsed by the live animal walk in the grounds which arrived a year or two ago. For reasons which are inexplicable to Mama, it’s the rabbits at the Horniman Museum that are the truly fascinating furry things there. She prefers the lamas.

Lama at the Horniman

What she doesn’t realise is that as well as being a varied group with one record breakingly huge white one, the rabbits are pretty lively. No lounging around sleeping off lunch, hiding in the corner of the enclosure visitors cannot see into or staring contemplatively but unmoving into the distance for half an hour while chewing grass for the rabbits! No, it’s all nose twitching and bounding enthusiastically through the tunnels! In close up! Fabulous stuff.

The only down side is that bit opens at 12pm, so you shouldn’t plan to head straight for it when you arrive the way we always want to. Unless, of course, you get there after 12.

Still, if you are caught out, the Horniman Museum’s grounds are pretty cool, all 16 acres of them. Mama likes the spectacular view over London best, but we are more into the small play area. It is musical! There are things to bang, tap and generally make a loud noise with. It’s great!

View from the Horniman

As well as this, there’s a massive field where you can run around shouting or sit and eat a picnic, although there is also an outdoor café with tables, and even a few tables inside a small room if the weather is bad. This is apart from the proper café, which is back towards the main building. What Mama likes about that is that their overspill seating is inside a particularly splendid conservatory. It is imperative that if it is open we have a coffee break here regardless of how awash we are with beverages and sandwiches already.

Conservatory at the Horniman

Now that, as far as my Superdooper Big Brother in particular is concerned, is pretty much it for the Horniman Museum. Mama would like to spend a bit more time looking at some of the other collections they have, such as the African World one, which BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH (emphasis my Superdooper Big Brother’s, who is not one iota moved by the riot of colour, the wild variety of textiles, the oddly shaped statuettes, the mysterious objects or even the mummies inside. No obvious lion/rhino/zebra/giraffe/camel interest, you see) and especially the one about 100 years of collecting at the museum, which is what Mama describes as a fascinating look into the way that what people consider both cool and acceptable to acquire has changed over time, and what we describe as an area insufficiently full of animals or things I can touch.

In the end, in the face of our total disinterest, Mama compromises on taking us down to the music room.

The music room is pretty good not because of the thousands of instruments on display, but because of the computers. Touch screens! Woohoo! To be honest, for me touch screens can show pretty much anything and I am hooked, but these ones are particularly excellent because what they allow you to do is hear the instruments around you playing, and so Mama will allow us to muck about with them for HOURS because she find this interesting. Yes! My Sooperdooper Big Brother likes it because the sound tables are arranged in such a way that a small crowd of children can (and do) gather around one all at the same time and oooh and aaah over the sounds, and he can socialise, which is something he likes almost but not quite as much as animals.

There are also some live demonstrations of some of the instruments, or at least, we tripped over someone playing a harpsichord last time we went.

Harpsichord at the Horniman

And if you want a go yourself, there is a room with a whole bunch more of hitting, stroking, whacking and plucking opportunities, in case you didn’t get your fill outside. Mama clearly didn’t because she LOVES it in there.

Drum at the Horniman

The Horniman Museum, then, is a quirky treasure trove of all sorts of interesting dodads, and certainly well worth a visit for young people, especially as they are very welcoming towards children, even quite small children. Despite the fact that local families clearly know this and have made it a firm favourite in their going out repertoire, it is still not nearly as busy as the big Kensington Museums at any given time. It even also has what seem to be quite interesting temporary exhibitions on too, although we have never found that we have exhausted the rest of the museum with sufficient time to spare to make paying the entrance fee worth it.

So if you are planning on heading in to London some school holiday and can’t face standing in queues all day to catch a sixty second glimpse of an anamatronic T Rex and some increasingly dusty mammal models, this is a very viable alternative. And if you already live in London and haven’t made it to the Horniman Museum, whether or not you have children, what on earth is keeping you away?

More Information

The museum’s website.

This is what the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has to say about wanting to be a conductor.

Address: 100 London Road, Forest Hill, London, SE23 3PQ

Opening: 10.30am to 5.30pm daily.

Admission: Free, except for the aquarium (Adults £3.50, Kids £1.50, Family £7.50) and any special exhibitions.

By bus: Routes 176, 185, 197, 356, P4 stop outside the Museum and Gardens on London Road, and there are a few more which stop close by.

By train: Forest Hill station is a five to ten uphill walk away. It’s on the Overground network (Highbury and Islington to West Croydon/ Crystal Palace) and also has trains from London Bridge (Northern and Jubilee lines) and Victoria (Victoria, Circle and District lines) as well as others from Croydon and Surrey.

By car: There is no parking at the Horniman itself, except disabled parking. The Horniman website suggests some parking spots in the area you could try but is discouraging about the whole idea of car travel as a good travel option for visiting the museum.