The Easter holidays have begun and I always like to take the boys – my son’s eldest two, Freddie (10) and Ben (7) – for an outing. It’s fun for me – and it always seems fun for them too! Of late, we’ve combined some kind of cultural – art/museum/theatre – visit with a meal in central London. Well, this is a food blog! There’s been The Nutcracker at Christmas, the Old Vic for a play, Tate Modern, the Courtauld, and today we headed to the British Museum.
The British Museum is the most popular attraction in UK. It was established in 1753 and is located in the Bloomsbury area of London, famous as the place where the Bloomsbury Set – an influential group of writers and artists – lived in the early 20th century. They were known for their Bohemian style of living and liberal politics. The current building dates from 1823-1852. The stunning Great Court, which you walk into on arrival, was opened in 2000, covering a space opened out by the relocation of The British Library to St Pancras.
There was purpose in choosing this as a place to visit today. Freddie has been learning about Ancient Egypt at school and as we talked about it one day, I suggested we visit the British Museum in the holidays. Both boys were very excited about going and happily the enthusiastic anticipation was well rewarded, first by them catching sight of the building as we walked towards it, awed by its size and architecture; the entrance into the Great Court; and then the displays themselves, with them recognising many things they’d learnt about at school, seen on the museum’s website and in books. Entrance is free, though it’s best to book an entry slot; a fee is charged for special exhibitions.
We headed to the Egyptian galleries first, of course. It was – despite arriving quite early – very crowded, but we manoeuvred our way through the people and the boys really enjoyed seeing all the sculptures, the beautifully decorated wooden coffins and sarcophagi and items like pots and chairs. They were awed by the age of the exhibits, remarking on how some of the things had retained their colour so well. There was a huge crowd round the Rosetta Stone which is famous for serving as a key to deciphering the ancient Egyptian language and hieroglyphs. Freddie recognised it on sight so we queued at the back of the crowd until we could get to the front for a good look.
I did take lots of photos but think I probably would need permission to publish them here, so I’m afraid you’ll have to take my word for it being a great place to visit. And do take a look at the museum’s website (https://www.britishmuseum.org) which includes a virtual tour round the Egyptian gallery. We did go into some other galleries – the Ancient Greeks and others – but it’s a huge museum and I promised we’d return to see more another time.
Often I book somewhere to eat when we have these outings, but I wasn’t sure of our timing and how long we’d want to spend in the museum. It has a cafe, a restaurant and a pizzeria so I suggested to the boys we ate there if it seemed a good idea and they wanted to look round more of the museum after lunch (which they did) or we could leave and find somewhere else. We opted for the pizzeria and it turned out to be a good choice.
It’s attractive inside and they had a great and reasonably priced kids’ menu. The boys wanted to go for the full works: pizza, soft drink and ice cream for £14.
Freddie had pink lemonade (which he said was delicious), Ben some apple juice and I had an alcohol-free beer.
Freddie chose a Pepperoni Pizza.
Ben had a Margherita Pizza.
And from the adult menu I chose a Greek salad. Well, it seemed appropriate in the British Museum! It was nice enough and had some watermelon chunks in it, which made it a little more special (watermelon is often served with feta cheese in Greece). It was quite small though for £13. In fact Freddie thought I’d ordered myself a starter! Both boys offered me slices of their pizza.
The pizzas were very good. I was a little uncertain how we’d find them. The boys’ dad – my son – makes wonderful sourdough pizzas; we eat pizza at the local Masaniello restaurant where head chef/owner Livio comes from Naples and his family ran a pizzeria; and we go quite often to Franco Manca, which does a brilliant kids’ menu. Happily the British Museum’s pizzas turned out to be very good and the boys enjoyed them a lot.
The ice creams they had at the end were excellent Jude’s ones.
It was a very good lunch and on the way out we took a look at the two chefs making the pizzas. Then Freddie was keen to find the Ancient Greek rooms and we were able to access them almost as soon as we came out of the pizzeria, off to the left. I followed where the boys wanted to go, letting them lead wherever something caught their eye. Then, after a while I said I thought we ought to make our way home before it got too late and we hit the rush hour. I promised we’d return another time soon. We made our way out via the shop – of course! – and they each chose little gifts to take home as mementos. Coming out into Great Russell Street, we saw how busy it now was and were glad we’d arrived early. Then we headed to a bus stop where a 68 bus would take us back to Waterloo station.
What a great day out.
