Greenwich

We had a great day out in Greenwich a couple of weeks ago. I worked out that this was one of the few areas of London that I hadn't visited and so we decided to make a day of it.

We travelled there by the Docklands Light Railway, and this in itself was quite an experience. The Docklands area is very dense and we found ourselves travelling along very close to many skyscrapers (largely owned by financial companies), interspersed with small modern housing developments and lots of restaurants and eateries. This looked like a good place for a young professional to live -- if you could afford to buy a property here!

We started off by visiting the Old Naval College. This was beautiful -- both the Painted Hall and the chapel are open to the public and they are covered in stunning eighteenth century frescoes. Furthermore, this is free. So well worth a visit. There was also some filming going on outside the collage when we visited, which the kids found fascinating.

We went on to the maritime museum -- again free and full of interesting exhibits to do with the ocean. We particularly enjoyed the environmental exhibition, the exhibit showing artefacts of sea travel throughout the ages, and the hugely ornate Prince Frederick's Barge (built in 1732 and used for royal occasions).

Last but not least, food. We ate lunch and tea at the Waterstones Cafe in Greenwich. This was a pleasant place -- not as busy as the other local cafes and with very friendly and welcoming staff. We ate supper at Cantina Laredo on Upper Saint Martin's Lane. This serves delicious Mexican food and is one of our favourite restaurants in town.

We didn't manage to visit everything that there is to see in Greenwich, so we plan to go back at some point to see the observatory, the Queen's House and to have a wander in the royal park.

The Oxfordshire Museum, Woodstock

I have been meaning to visit the Oxordshire Museum in Woodstock for some time, and the kids and I finally got round to it this half term.

It was definitely worth the wait! We really enjoyed ourselves and managed to spend two-and-a-half hours there, including a stop for lunch, which is longer than some much larger museums have detained us in the past.

The building that hosts the museum is beautiful -- a large eighteenth-century house in the heart of the historic market town of Woodstock -- and each gallery or room of the house includes a wall plaque telling you a little about the history and past uses of the room itself.

The museum collection is eclectic, but broadly covers artefacts from, and periods of history pertaining to, Oxfordshire. There are galleries covering dinosaurs, Roman times, the Victorians, wildlife, innovation, the people of Oxfordshire, and more. The artefacts are very well presented, there are hands-on activities, and the theme running through much of the museum is that history is about people and the way they live their lives.

The museum also boasts a spacious and lovely garden (full of spring flowers when we visited) with a terrace where you can sample the food from the cafe on warmer days.

An added bonus when we visited was 'Keeping up Appearances', an exhibition of women's fashion through the two world wars, which told the story of how changing fashions reflected the changing status and lives of women.

I would highly  recommend a visit to the Oxfordshire Museum, and if you want to catch 'Keeping up Appearances', make sure you visit before 12 April.