UK Tourist & Leisure Attractions - IWM

Quite an imposing sight on arrival at the Imperial War Museum with those two big guns pointing out!  The IWM is in Lambeth just south of the Thames, nearest tube is Lambeth North.  The museum entrance...

...led into the main Large Exhibits Gallery with lots of awesome aircraft suspended overhead plus there were tanks, rockets and other weapons and historic military vehicle collections.

Up in the elevated galley at the Imperial War Museum, we found these big guns seemingly aiming out at some of those combat aircraft in the Large Exhibits Gallery!

Here's the fuselage remains of a bomber which we took a peek in to see its innards - and noticed the pretty basic levels of comfort for the aircrew.

The Large Exhibits Gallery had a V2 rocket and a very old London bus.  The queue there was for tickets for the temporary Ian Fleming exhibition.

Now looking to the other side of the Imperial War Museum's Large Exhibits Gallery and a navy rocket, some more air weapons, tanks and aircraft.  Onto...

...the museum's cafe, which was adequate but not too exciting.  There's an extensive park area outside for picnicking on a suitable day, sadly the London weather wasn't conducive on our visit to the IWM though.

The Imperial War Museum ran talks throughout the day.  We also visited the interesting 'For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond' exhibition, devoted to the life and work of James Bond's creator.

Venturing into the museum's fascinating Secret War Gallery at the IWM we found an original German Enigma cipher machine used for sending secret coded messages during WWll.

We discovered that during wars regular soldiers were tasked with recording the battles on film.  Here's the sort of kit they used, somewhat crude by today's standards of course!  And no, Mike doesn't want one, he's quite happy with his modern digital camcorder.  It was quite amazing to realise that that bulky beast of a camera had to be lugged around during combat!

More gallery areas at the Imperial War Museum in London, and this shot shows an example of the various displays exhibited.  It all appeared well planned and the right mood was set by appropate lighting.  Many weblinks to our visits are in our UK tourist resources.

The First World War Gallery had a gripping walk-through re-creation of a front line trench on the Somme with effective lighting, sound and smell effects.  This section was similar to the one at the Tank Museum we'd previously visited.

In the IWM's Second World War Gallery we learnt how wartime pilots navigated to their target using what seemed like some pretty hit and miss techniques.

Also in the Second World War Gallery Belinda admired the men in uniform with their huge weapons!  The Blitz Experience was particularly interesting in this section.

We also toured the extensive Holocaust Exhibition which was rather shocking, sad and moving.  Here's some more of the exhibits in the Large Exhibits Gallery on our way out.  Our conclusion? - the Imperial War Museum is well worth visiting!

Typical tourists taking pictures of everything!  We certainly enjoyed looking round London's Imperial War Museum, if visiting allow a full day as we ran out of time to see everything (but we did go to the Ian Fleming exhibition too).  IWM entrance is free.