Museum Mondays - Part 3

Museum Mondays continues, this time at the British Museum. We planned on taking an 11am tour of the Japan galleries but alas, it was cancelled. Instead we saw the Olympic Medals, currently on display. They are the upcoming medals, what the athletes will receive at the London Olympics. They are HUGE, or at least we thought they looked a lot bigger than past years appeared to be. We also checked out a Manga exhibit that showcases a story line involving the British Museum. The author/artist is a famous manga writer and he created a new story for and starring the museum.

After taking a little break we decided to be ambitious and take a tour after all. We settled on the Enlightenment Room tour. I had never been in the Enlightenment room and it's actually quite fascinating. There are many objects collected by the Sloane of Sloane Square, along with other bits that highlight how people classified and collected objects during this period of learning. It's a sort of bits and bobs collection and nice to wander. Our tour was interesting, except for the fact the tour guide was a bit of a low talker. We were a group of about 10 and it was hard to hear him in this large room with other people wandering and talking nearby unless you were practically in his face. And I wasn't about to get all up in his face. So I missed a hell of a lot of what he said. Too bad. He did use a laser pointer so I at least got to follow that as he swung it from one object to the next. It was a sort of red dot parade for me, and I enjoyed that at least. I left a bit early to ensure that Riley didn't have an accident (she was good girl, don't worry) and I was told that someone offered the guide a throat lozenge at the end, so perhaps he was sick. He seemed very knowledgeable about the room and the objects, and the tour was supposed to last 40 minutes and ended up going over 50. I guess that's both a plus and minus for the free tours.

The nice thing about the museums in London (aside from them being free, the best perk of all) is that they offer all these free tours. The day we went there were probably 10-12 tours going on throughout the day, for all the various galleries at the museum. I would definitely go back to hear more, and to learn a bit about art that I have no real knowledge of, and to refresh what I may have learned in college but promptly forgot (I minored in Classics so at one time - not now - knew a bit about Greek antiquities). And maybe next time I'll just casually carry a small megaphone with me in case the guide needs it. "Oh this old thing? Here, use it!"

Next Monday - The National Gallery. Stay tuned!