Natural History Museum, London

A Victorian Battenberg cake of a building, this multi-pastel masterpiece is crowned by carvings of animals. The Life Galleries still feel Victorian, with their array of stuffed animals culminating in a life-size model of a blue whale. More state-of-the-art are the Dinosaur Galleries, with a snarling animatronics model of Tyrannosaurus Rex, and even more so are the brand-new Darwin galleries, which explain evolution via projections of animals and plants. Free after-hours evenings on the last Friday of the month make for a kooky night out. You can hobnob with the dinosaur skeleton in the central hall to the sounds of live jazz or world music.

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