More museums and galleries

The British Museum in Great Russell Street is the biggest museum in Britain, and the oldest museum in the world. It opened in 1759. There are 94 galleries (it is a four kilometre walk through all these galleries), a reading room, and bookshops. At the centre of the building is the beautiful Great Court.

The Museum of London at 150 London Wall opened in 1976. There you can learn about London and its people from its earliest times. At the Natural History Museum in Cromwell Road you can learr all about our world and the people and animals in it. You can see the dinosaur exhibition - with moving dinosaurs - and many more beautiful and interesting things.

The Science Museum has more than 10,000 exhibits. Here you can learn about the science of the past, and the science of today. It also has an IMAX cinema.

A much smaller museum, at 48 Doughty Street, is the Dickens House Museum. The writer Charles Dickens lived in this house with his family for three years, from 1837 to 1839. He wrote two of his books here - Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby. After Shakespeare, Dickens is England's next most famous writer.

Another important British writer, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, wrote stories about Sherlock Holmes. The clever detective and his friend Dr Watson are now famous all over the world. The Sherlock Holmes Museum is at 221b Baker Street. The house was built in 1815, and in the stories Holmes lives at this address.

Holmes did not really live in Baker Street, of course, but at the museum you can learn all about him. You can see Holmes's hat and Dr Watson's bedroom, and many things from the stories. And you can sit in Holmes's chair for a photograph.

The London Transport Museum is in Covent Garden, and tells the story of London's buses and underground trains from the early nineteenth century. There are lots of interesting things here; you can see films, 'drive' a London bus or underground train, and hear stories about buses in London during the Second World War.

Four million people visit the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square every year. There are more than 2,300 pictures here - the earliest from the thirteenth century.

Next to the National Gallery is the National Portrait Gallery, in St Martin's Place. Here you can see pictures of famous people. There are faces from the past - pictures of kings and queens, and of William Shakespeare - and faces from today - from Prince William to David Beckham.

Tate Britain is at Millhank, past Lambeth Bridge. It is the home of British art, from the year 1500 to today. There are pictures by John Constable, J. M.W. Turner, and many other famous names in British art.

Madame Tussauds in Marylebone Road is famous for its wax figures. You can see famous people from the past and famous people of today - Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Beyonce, and Brad Pitt. And in the 'Chamber of Horrors' you can see some very bad people.

The London Dungeon in Tooley Street is a 'Museum of Horror'. Half a million people visit it every year — but some do not stay very long!

Museums and art galleries can be very busy, but in the late afternoon it is often quieter. In many of the bigger museums and galleries, tickets are free.

8 Theatres, music_, and sport

London's West End has some of the best theatres in the world, so tickets can be expensive. Sometimes they are fifty pounds or more. But you can get cheaper tickets too.

Go in the afternoon; tickets are often cheaper then. Or go to the tkts shop in Leicester Square. They have cheap tickets for many theatres in London, but the tickets are for that afternoon or evening. Or buy a ticket for 'the gods'. This is right at the top of the theatre, and it is always the cheapest place.

There is something for everybody - plays from hundreds of years ago, new plays by young writers, and of course The Mousetrap. This very English play by Agatha Christie began in 1952, and it is still going more than fifty years later. Thousands of visitors see it every year.

The National Theatre is in the South Bank Centre by the River Thames. It opened in 1976, and there are three different theatres in the building. There are also five restaurants and cafes, a big bookshop, free art exhibitions, and free music in the evenings.

At the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden you can hear wonderful music and singing from all over the world. For more music, go to the Royal Albert Hall in Kensington Gore next to Hyde Park.

But perhaps you want to see Madonna, or the Red Hot Chili Peppers, or Usher. Look at Earls Court, Wembley Stadium, and the Brixton Academy. And the place for cinemas is Leicester Square. You can see dozens of different films here, and when there is a premiere, you can see the stars with their beautiful clothes and expensive cars.

The Barbican Arts Centre is at Silk Street. It has three cinemas, two theatres, a concert hall, and one of London's biggest art galleries. There is also a school of music and a library. The nearest underground station is Barbican.

Then there are London's clubs - hundreds of them. There are small clubs, big clubs, clubs with 70s music, clubs with the latest music. Fabric, Ministry of Sound, and Po Na Na are all famous clubs, but there are lots of new ones too. Many clubs are open till 2 a.m. or later. In many clubs tickets are more expensive late at night, so go early. There are lots of clubs in Soho and Covent Garden, and also in Notting Hill, York Way, and Clerkenwell.

Cricket is a very English game. You can see it at Lord's Cricket Ground in St John's Wood in North London or the Oval near Vauxhall in South London.

London is the home of some of the most famous names in English football. Chelsea play at Stamford Bridge, Fulham Road, SW6, and Tottenham Hotspur play at White Hart Lane, High Road, N17.

The world's best tennis players come to London every June for the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships. You can see them at the All England Lawn Tennis Club in Church Road, Wimbledon, but you need to go early. Sometimes people wait all night for tickets!

The Oxford and Cambridge University Boat Race began in Henley-on-Thames in 1829. These days the race, nearly 7 kilometres long, begins in Putney and ends in Mortlake. It is in March or April every year. About 250,000 people stand beside the river or on the bridges and watch the two fast boats.

The London Marathon happens on a Sunday in April. The runners start at Greenwich and run through the streets of London to Westminster. Some of the world's best runners come to London for the race - and thousands of other people run for three, four, five or more hours to finish the marathon. Today more than half a million people can say, 'I finished the London Marathon.'

In 1908 and 1948 people came to London from all over the world for the Olympic Games. Now the Olympic Games are coming to London for the third time in 2012. Many Londoners are excited about this.

Date: 2016-01-14; view: 1669