London
London
+ Central London
Sights
* Apsley House
* Banqueting House
* BBC Experience
* British Airways London Eye
* Buckingham Palace
* Cabinet War Rooms
* Chelsea
* Clink Exhibition
* Courtauld Gallery
* Design Museum
* Dickens House Museum
* Docklands
* Fleet Street
* Guildhall
* Hampstead
* Harrods
* HMS Belfast
* Highgate
* Hyde Park
* Imperial War Museum
* Inns of Court
* Jermyn Street
* Jewel Tower
* Kensington Palace and Kensington Gardens
* Kenwood House
* Leighton House
* Lloyd's Building
* London Aquarium
* London Dungeon
* London Planetarium
* London Transport Museum
* London Zoo
* Madame Tussaud's
* Monument
* Museum of Childhood, Bethnal Green
* Museum of London
* National Army Museum
* National Portrait Gallery
* Oxo Tower
* Piccadilly Circus
* Regent's Park
* Royal Academy (of Arts)
* St Bartholomew-the-Great
* St Bride
* St James's Palace
* St James's Park
* St James's Piccadilly
* St James's Street
* St Katharine's Dock
* St Stephen Walbrook
* Shakespeare's Globe Exhibition
* Sir John Soane's Museum
* Soho
* Southwark Cathedral
* Spencer House
* Tate Britain and Tate Modern
* Theatre Museum
* Tower Bridge
* Trafalgar Square
* Wallace Collection
* Westminster Cathedral
* Whitehall
* Winston Churchill's Britain at War
Vicinity
+ Vicinity
Walk/Drive
Food&Drink
In The Know
Did You Know?
( Do not miss )
Dedicated to telling the story of world conflict during the 20th century, the Imperial War Museum has the most impressive entrance of any London museum. Suspended from the ceiling of its glass atrium and occupying two floors around the atrium are World War II fighter planes, biplanes from the Great War, a V2 rocket, a Polaris missile, field guns, tanks, submarines, plus over 40 other large exhibits. Despite this grand martial entrance, however, this is a thought-provoking museum, which tells the story of war dispassionately, often from the point of view of the ordinary soldier or the folks left at home. The emphasis inevitably is on the two World Wars and each has a large walk-in section where you can experience the horrors of the trenches and the claustrophobia of an air-raid shelter, then the aftermath of a bombing raid. Most harrowing of all is the new (permanent) exhibition, The Holocaust.
The narrative collection is brilliantly chosen, comprising many personal and almost everyday objects from the trenches, the concentration camps, the Far East, the Eastern Front, the Atlantic Ocean and all the significant theatres of war. These are combined with memorabilia such as recruiting posters, dramatic contemporary film footage and - best of all - spoken first-hand accounts from ordinary combatants and survivors.
Conflicts since 1945 are also well handled and the Secret War Exhibition, detailing clandestine operations from World War I to the present day, is fascinating. The top floor is dedicated to war artists and features many highly acclaimed works.
Address: Lambeth Road
Phone: (020) 7416 5000. WEBSITE: www.iwm.org.uk
Open: Daily 10-6. Closed 24-26 Dec
Restaurant: Café (Inexpensive), picnic room open weekends, school hols
Metro: Lambeth North, Elephant & Castle, Waterloo
Accessible: Excellent
Admission: Moderate/expensive. Children free. Free after 4:30
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