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Mon-Sat 10am-5.50pm, Sun 11am-5.50pm; GBP7.50; free Mon-Fri after 4.30pm, Sat & Sun after 5pm; www.nhm.ac.uk. Tube: South Kensington. Alfred Waterhouse's purpose-built mock-Romanesque colossus ensures the Natural History Museum 's status as London's most handsome museum. Caught up, without huge public funds, in the current enthusiasm for museum redesign and accessibility, the contents are a mishmash of truly imaginative exhibits peppered amongst others little changed since the museum's opening in 1881. The museum is caught in a genuine conundrum, for its collections are important resources for serious zoologists, while its collection of real dinosaurs is a big hit with the kids. The main entrance is in the middle of the museum's 675-foot terracotta facade, which leads to what are now known as the Life Galleries . Just off the vast Central Hall, dominated by an 85ft-long plaster cast of a Diplodocus skeleton, you'll find the Dinosaur gallery, where a team of animatronic deinonychi feast on a half-dead tenontosaurus. Other popular sections include the Creepy-Crawlies Room and the Ecology Gallery, plus the somewhat ancient displays of stuffed creatures. If the queues for the museum are long (as they can be at weekends and during school holidays), you're better off heading for the side entrance on Exhibition Road, which leads into the former Geology Museum, now known as the Earth Galleries , an expensively revamped and visually exciting romp through the earth's evolution. The most popular sections are the slightly tasteless Kobe earthquake simulator, and the spectacular display of gems and crystals in the Earth's Treasury.
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