Posts Tagged ‘museums’

Here’s a possibly controversial opinion. The Nation Railway Museum: not that good? I mean, it’s pretty good, and it’s free, but it’s not as amazing as I imagined it would be.

In fairness, the nature of my visit didn’t help the matter. I went there to meet Elina and Venla after the Yorkshire Marathon and so headed straight to the Great Hall where they were located. In some ways, this is the centrepiece of the museum. But in other ways, it is the most boring.

They have a bunch of trains. But you can’t go in them. I mean, they’re trains. They’re designed to have people in them. It’s not like they’re the Mona Lisa: they were built for people to go inside.

Or, at very least, allow us to look in them. Bus most didn’t even had steps up so you could take a peak, and even when they did, they only slowed you the ends of the trains, rather than a proper walkway. Without them, it’s just not that good because trains are really tall.

I thought the station hall was a lot better. This is set up like a train station so you can see into each of the carriages and you can go into several of them, too. The postal train was really interesting.

More importantly, Venla had a good day. If you gave her a giant hall where she could run around in, she would have a briliant time with that alone. Being able to scream “choo choo train” every minute for several hours was just an added bonus.

Earlier this month, Norman was kind enough to host us for the weekend at his new flat in Cardiff. It’s a nice place and just round the corner from Cardiff city centre.

On the Friday evening we ended up having a meal at Chapel 1877, which was very good. On Saturday we went to St Fagans National History Museum which was an outdoor museum with some traditional buildings and a large manor house and gardens.

There was also a bird hide where we saw some mice. I should have brought my telephoto lens!

We had lunch at a pub just round the corner from St Fagans. It was a Vintage Inn, and lived up to expectations. Despite it being Cardiff, we actually had lots of glorious sunshine on the Saturday and it didn’t really rain (much) until we got back. In the evening we drove to Cardiff Bay had had dinner at a Turkish restaurant on the peer that I didn’t think much of.

On Sunday we spent the morning looking round Cardiff Castle in very heavy rain before heading to the fish and chip shop. I was very pleased to get fish and chips because I had tried to get them on Friday lunch time (they had run out), Saturday lunch time (their fryer was broken) and Saturday evening (we went to a Turkish restaurant instead) but you can’t go to the seaside and not have a fish and chips, even if it is a highly industrialised port.

We went to Leeds City Museum to see the Stolen, Saved, Smuggled? exhibit. It was pretty disappointing to be honest.

I try to visit the Royal Armouries on a regular basis because it’s a fantastic resource located right on my doorstep (and it’s totally free!).

So with some time off work and Elina here, we decided to head down for a look around.

Unfortunately, Elina’s week over here had fallen in half term which resulted in the museum being full of kids which is annoying. I was disappointed to see that they didn’t really have anything new either, except for a very small exhibit on peace, which I thought could have been a lot better.

You’ll notice in the second photo that Princess Diana is still making an appearance. Also, they spelt brother without the R in one of the posters in the self-defence selection – well spotted Elina.

On Wednesday myself and Gijsbert headed down to London on CWF business. Actually we almost didn’t – when I phoned Gijsbert at 17:40, an hour before the train was due to leave, he answered the phone with the question “so, what time do we leave tomorrow?” :D.

Luckily he made it in time though and we were on our way. As well as some productive meetings we managed to get round the Imperial War Museum in the morning, which was cool although I didn’t think it was as fantastic as most people had talked it up to be.

I have to say I really like the taxi system in London also. It may be rather expensive (though what isn’t in London) but just the fact that there are so many of them driving around that you can flag down and you just can’t beat a chatty London cabbie.