Best Things To See On A Walk From King’s Cross Station To The British Museum

It’s easy to ride the Tube or a bus from King’s Cross St. Pancras Station to the British Museum, but you see more on foot. The direct route is about one mile with no hills.

From King’s Cross, the route traverses Bloomsbury, famous for writers, artists, and green squares.

Guided tours are often organized along a theme. Our list is not like that. It follows a fairly direct route and shows you some points of interest along the way.

King's Cross St. Pancras station in London. — Google Maps Street View

The Magnificent Architecture Of King’s Cross St. Pancras

King’s Cross St. Pancras is two connected train and Tube stations, with shopping, food, and restrooms inside each.

Witnessed from across busy Euston Road, the two stations are distinctly different. King’s Cross was designed by engineer Lewis Cubitt and opened in 1852. It looks boldly modern. Two great train-sized arches proclaim its purpose.

In contrast, the front of St. Pancras International Station, designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, is a highly decorated red brick Gothic Revival masterpiece. Today, this is the front of the St. Pancras Renaissance London Hotel, formerly the Midland Grand Hotel, built in 1873.

The entrance to Argyle Square gardens in London. — Google Maps Street View

Argyle Square, From Dust Heap To Respectability, Twice

The neat Georgian terrace houses defining Argyle Square today don’t give any clues to its dirty past.

The ground between here and King’s Cross Station used to be covered in the literal dirt of the Great Dust Heap. Pigs roamed this garbage mountain, hunting for food. Human scavengers sifted for valuables. Even dead cats were worth retrieving for their fur.

The story is that the Russians bought this dust heap and others to make into bricks for rebuilding Moscow after Napoleon burned it down.

Starting in the 1840s, Argyle Square saw the building of nice new homes. They weren’t meant to be grand, just tasteful, respectable houses.

Things slid downhill in the 20th century. King’s Cross became notorious for crime, prostitution, and drug dealing.

Since the 1990s, investments in the station and area have raised the tone again.

Clare Court on Judd Street in Bloomsbury, London. — Google Maps Street View

A Taste Of Art Deco In Bloomsbury

Clare Court on Judd Street in Bloomsbury is a U-shaped art deco apartment building with a spacious feel. Its most colorful past resident may have been Ian D. A. Board.

From the 1940s until he died in 1994, Board worked at and then ran the dingy, legendary Colony Room Club in Soho. The artist Francis Bacon was a regular.

Christopher Howse wrote that in a court case, Board gave his address as Clare Court. Then he testified about throwing the mobile phone of one Babyface Scarlatti across the room at the club.

Howse’s obituary of Board said, “In his 60th year he gave up drinking brandy for breakfast. He drank vodka in the morning at home.”

The location of London's first medical school for women. — Google Maps Street View

The First Medical School For Women, 8 Hunter Street

The extraordinarily determined Sophia Jex-Blake and six other women were admitted to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh in 1869. Many male classmates and doctors opposed them, even staging a riot. In 1873, those women who had already been granted degrees saw them revoked under pressure from the men.

In 1874, the determined Jex-Blake leased a house at 30 Handel Street (formerly Henrietta Street) and started a medical school. The London Evening Standard printed two sentences about it, beginning, “The London School of Medicine for Women was opened without any special ceremony.” The next story, significantly longer, featured the annual oyster festival in Colchester.

The school was a success, and in 1898 moved to a new, purpose-built home at 8 Hunter Street. Now used as a health center, the building continues along Handel Street and up Wakefield Street. Above the main door is the old sign, “London Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine for Women”.

St. George's Gardens in London. — Google Maps Street View

St. George’s Gardens, Outdoor Space For The Poor

This is one of London’s secret gardens. It’s no coincidence that St. George’s Gardens used to be an overgrown cemetery. Peeking in here will add about 15 minutes to your walk.

In 1714, this became the first London cemetery set far away from its church. The churchyards in London were full and this was the only solution.

After this new space was itself filled up, it became neglected.

As Charles Dickens vividly documented, London in the 1800s was a hard place for poor people. A few decades after Dickens, social reformers led by Miranda and Octavia Hill campaigned for more green space for Londoners. Opening up the cemeteries as public parks was one strategy. St. George’s Gardens opened as a park in 1884 and was one of the sisters’ first successes.

The high brick walls were built to keep out the body snatchers of the 1700s. These criminals sold stolen bodies to anatomists.

On the other side of the south wall is The Foundling Museum, but there is no direct public access to it.

Notable people remembered inside the cemetery-turned-park include Oliver Cromwell’s granddaughter Anna Gibson, whose large tomb is fairly easily found. On the north wall, there’s a plaque honoring 16 Jacobite supporters of Bonnie Prince Charlie, who were all executed in 1746 and buried here.

Leave St. George’s Gardens the way you came.

The Foundling Museum in Brunswick Square, London. — Google Maps Street View

The Foundling Museum, Brunswick Square

A visit to The Foundling Museum will take you off the direct path and is worth a stop of an hour or more if you have time. Otherwise, save it for another day and use Handel Street or Hunter Street to reach the nearby Brunswick complex (a large concrete building).

The Foundling Museum tells the story of the Foundling Hospital. Distressed by the suffering and death of abandoned babies in London, sea captain Thomas Coram and many influential supporters started a charity in 1739. The Foundling Hospital wasn’t a hospital for the sick; it was an orphanage that cared for children until 1954.

In the museum, visitors learn about the children’s lives. There are recordings of some of the people who grew up in care telling their own stories.

Many people are moved to see the tokens that the desperate, often destitute, mothers of the 1700s used to leave with their babies to identify them later, if ever they could reclaim them. The hope embodied in a playing card torn in half or a faded scrap of ribbon is timelessly touching.

Skoob Books in London's Brunswick building. — Google Maps Street View

Skoob Books In The Brunswick

Having been home to Virginia Woolf and Charles Dickens, among many other writers, it’s no surprise to find bookstores in Bloomsbury. Skoob is eclectic and accommodating, described by Time Out magazine as a “temple for secondhand books”.

Skoob is in The Brunswick, a modern concrete mixed-use complex from the early 1970s that combines apartments, shopping, and a cinema.

Leaving The Brunswick will put you on Marchmont Street. The local Marchmont Society has put up their own blue plaques on buildings associated with famous past residents. Kenneth Williams, comic actor, was one.

The Horse Hospital in Colonnade, London. — Google Maps Street View

The Horse Hospital, Colonnade

The Horse Hospital, built in 1797 when horses were the engines of transport, became an independent arts venue in the 1990s.

Kimpton Fitzroy London Hotel

Formerly the Hotel Russell, this hotel in Russell Square is eclectic and decorated to the extreme. The front of the hotel has statues of four past English queens.

Russell Square

Inside Russell Square, it’s leafy and green with a playful fountain.

On the western corner, outside the green space, there is a little green building. This is a traditional cabmen’s shelter, originally meant just for taxi drivers but now open for anyone to buy food and drink.

From here, it’s a short walk to the British Museum.

Pro Tips: The entrance on Montague Place may be quicker to get in through than the main entrance. To explore Bloomsbury more deeply, consider booking a tour with a London Blue Badge Guide.

For more unique London experiences, consider these eight things to do in the Marylebone neighborhood, what to know about mudlarking on the River Thames, and why you should visit the Churchill War Rooms.

Why Now Is The Time To Reconsider Voluntourism

For my husband and me, it’s day 14 at home. It’s the first time we’ve gone two weeks without setting foot off our property.

As Jill Weinreich pointed out in “Insights From Italy: What An American Living In Venetian Lockdown Hopes We’ll Learn,” an interview we published on March 19, staying home has not been a hardship for us. It has been a time for some deep thinking and tremendous gratitude.

We have a home. We have means. We have Amazon Prime and had groceries from Whole Foods delivered this morning. We have a little property and a creek runs behind our house. It’s spring, so we can appreciate all the plant and animal life that’s emerging without needing to go anywhere.

But the need right here in our own community feels more pressing than ever. I recently declined to go into the hospital to donate platelets. I slept on it after getting a call from the blood bank coordinator at the beginning of the week, and it just doesn’t feel right. I’m feeling some guilt about that.

Likewise, should we have checked with more people in our neighborhood to see if they needed fresh food? We picked up and delivered produce a few times before our shut-in officially commenced, but we haven’t helped that way since. We could share some Granny Smith apples and dried soups, but naturally, that feels like not enough.

So here we wait, sometimes out enjoying the sun. Preparing more consecutive home-cooked meals than I’ve eaten since graduate school. And scrolling. Facebook and Instagram definitely feel like places for connection, and it was while scrolling that I saw a post that caught my eye.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B-MNMepl25z/

“While our book is premised on overseas volunteering, the content applies just as much to local field positions as well. If you’re looking for a way to learn about intentions and volunteerism during your #selfisolation or #quarantine, now is a perfect time to grab a copy for yourself!”

I was struck by this @learning.service post. I started following the account at the recommendation of Charis Boke, a Cornell Intensive Nepali Language Program classmate who’s led Where There Be Dragons cultural immersion programs in Nepal. On a whim, I reached out to Learning Service for an interview.

Yesterday, I spoke to Claire Bennett, one of Learning Service’s founders. She’s currently self-isolating in Indonesia (which is a story in itself!). She spent part of her evening sharing Learning Service’s story and goals with me.

Here’s why she says now is the time to reconsider voluntourism, and how our travel dollars, and energies, can be spent more wisely when it’s time to travel again.

Claire Bennett teaching about Learning Service in Nepal. — Claire Bennett / LearningService.info

Learning Service Is Way More Than A Book

Right off the bat, Claire stressed that Learning Service is way more than a book. Yes, she, Joseph Collins, Zahara Heckscher, and Daniela Papi-Thornton coauthored Learning Service: The Essential Guide To Volunteering Abroad, but she told me the book came out of a larger advocacy movement. “We never planned to write a book — that was not our intention at all.”

In 2012 and 2013, Claire was living in Nepal (which is still her permanent home despite her current self-isolation in Indonesia) and Daniela was living in Cambodia, where Claire used to live as well. These were hotspots for very typical groups of volunteers, and Claire and Daniela found themselves getting disillusioned with the many negative side effects of the volunteers coming and going.

They recognized the volunteers’ intentions, but saw firsthand how certain volunteer efforts were contributing to corruption and misdirection of funds, especially when it came to orphanages in the two countries.

A Learning Service book. — Claire Bennett / LearningService.info

Claire explained that orphanage trafficking is a very well established fact by academics all around the world. “Children are used as a tourism product,” she explained, “brought away from their families,” who are being deceived or manipulated.

“There’s a demand for volunteering with children,” she said. “It’s like a product.” And civil wars in Nepal and Cambodia once meant there were a lot of orphans. “But now there are fewer.”

Nefarious means of keeping the numbers of orphanages up are just part of the problem. Learning Service also challenges people to think about the disconnect between people’s understandings of what is best for children in their own countries versus their willingness to join a busload of people turning up for an afternoon to play with kids at an orphanage or make donations of toys and rice that are immediately put back onto the market and sold.

Claire brought up attachment theory and pointed to a win in Australia: Last year, the country outlawed orphanage volunteering. No companies or schools registered in Australia are allowed to engage in orphanage-related voluntourism any more.

But It’s Not Just About Orphanages (Or Not Helping At All)

“It’s pretty easy to deconstruct something like voluntourism,” Claire told me. But she also pointed out that just telling people they’re wrong or have bad intentions isn’t very helpful.

“We weren’t just going to point out the negatives,” she said. She and her colleagues realized many prospective volunteers are “trying to genuinely make changes that they want to see in the world.”

So they made a series of toolkits and videos that still exist on the Learning Service website.

That said, answering questions about how the history and context of problems prospective volunteers want to address relate to things like colonialism couldn’t be addressed through what Claire called “the soundbite approach.”

“We were missing the bigger picture of how you need to approach something like this,” she told me. “Instead of being defensive, let’s unpack this. Isn’t there something to be salvaged in terms of global solidarity? What we want to lay out is much longer than an article, so we decided to write a book, which then took four years.”

Learning Service: The Essential Guide To Volunteering Abroad was published in 2018 and got “really great responses.” Claire told me, “Noam Chomsky endorsed it, so that was really good.”

Students studying Learning Service in Indonesia. — Claire Bennett / LearningService.info

Using This Time To Learn And Reflect

“We have a psychological attraction to simplicity,” Claire told me. “This village doesn’t have a well. These poor orphans …” these are the kinds of problems people hop on a plane bound for tropical places to fix, and the experiences often seem made to be photographed, for Instagram or otherwise.

But the day in, day out commitment to homelessness or lonely elderly people, or any of the problems we’ve become aware of in our own communities, especially right now, often seem “really unglamorous.” Claire said they’re “complex cultural problems that are difficult to unpack and solve,” and that a village’s lack of a well or an orphan population is actually no different. They only look simple.

Companies can market the idea that they’re really easy to fix; cruises can arrange a stop with a half day of volunteering.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BuJQ0eqFgy7/

Claire said people think that they can “drop in for an afternoon and solve these huge problems like poverty and global inequality” but stresses that they can’t. And she says our context right now — one of global lockdown — actually has “loads of positives.”

She urges people to look at their immediate communities for opportunities to help and says there are “loads of opportunities for this bigger understanding of global interconnectedness and our responsibilities to other countries.”

“It’s going to be really clear how inequality is playing a part.”

“There are no borders to this thing,” she said. “We are going to have to work together. We have to acknowledge that there’s extreme inequality in the world.”

She sees a silver lining in China sending supplies and ventilators out to places that are currently stricken but also points to the importance of doing turning inward.

If you’ve been considering volunteering overseas, she suggests learning about yourself and your own motivations.

“Travelers are absolutely overwhelmed. They don‘t know who to trust. You might be looking at all these articles that are highly critical of voluntourism, but then on the other hand, you get all these marketing machines that want you to pay a lot of money to go do this.”

She says now we have time to do the research, because none of us will be going anywhere for a while.

Claire at a temple in Cambodia. — Claire Bennett / LearningService.info

‘Just Go On A Vacation’

This advice might come as a surprise, but Claire, who saw the effects of the stalled tourist industry in Siem Reap, Cambodia, before self-isolating in Indonesia (where she was leading a group of Princeton undergraduates who were evacuated to their homes back in the States) suggests that when people can travel again, they “just go on a vacation. Go on a learning trip. Then decide how to help.”

During our chat, she discussed the blurred lines voluntourism creates between the tourism sector and the international development sector and said that while hapless students showing up somewhere to build a fence might feel like they’re on vacation, the work they’re doing (or the problems they’re contributing to) are more development related.

Unfortunately, few of these projects are community driven. They often involve descending on another person’s culture having “already decided what the problem and solution is themselves — coming into a problem and putting themselves in a position of authority.”

A beautiful sunset in Nepal. — Claire Bennett / LearningService.info

Traveling somewhere as a tourist, on the other hand, is an opportunity to stimulate the local economy and to learn. Valuing this opportunity is exactly why learning comes first in Learning Service (a riff on the service learning model that’s picked up steam in many colleges and universities).

“Tourism is not in the cards right now. At some point, it will be. What is going to be important then is people coming back to these destinations and spending their money in the local economy.”

Claire encourages people to vote with their money and make responsible tourism decisions, opting for “ecotourism places” and “social enterprises that are training up street kids, where tourism dollars can really go a long way.”

“Realistically, that is going to be the kind of tourism that will be easy to do without very much research or a long time commitment that will get these developing economies back on their feet,” she told me. “Not that there won’t be a place for volunteering. It requires a lot of research and mindful reflection. The efforts are going to be most useful put into local community initiatives where you are not going to be the hero of the story … you’re going to be a tiny cog in a much larger ecosystem.”

If you go to a “quote-on-quote poor place,” Claire said, “people will assume you’re there to help.” What if, instead, your response to questions was, “Actually, I’m just going to go to learn”?

Going into week three at home, and literally dreaming about travel back to Mexico, India, and beyond, this is definitely something I’ll be ruminating on.

9 Fabulous Flowers To Plant To Remind You Of Your International Travels

Traveling around the world gives you the opportunity to experience the beautiful landscapes of lands near and far. We love to discover different flowers in every place we visit. Some flowers are closely associated with a particular destination, while others are simply beautiful wildflowers found along roadsides, in undeveloped areas, or near trails. We’ve also visited flower markets featuring a variety of blooms.

It’s wonderful to see — and smell — flowers around the world. But it’s also possible to bring a bit of that world to your home. A fun way to do so is to plant the flowers you’ve seen and loved on your travels. Depending upon the climate in which you live, it may be easy for you to grow tropical flowers, plant an English garden, create a cold-weather floral paradise, or try a combination all your own.

Here are some of our favorite flowers we’ve encountered while traveling abroad, along with suggestions for where you might buy them if you’re interested in adding them to your own garden.

1. Tulips

Holland

The tulip is almost universally associated with Holland. Not only do the locals treasure their bright and cheery blooms, but visitors come from all over the world to enjoy the large fields of color.

You can also spot these gorgeous blooms at festivals around the United States in the spring. Tulip Time in the aptly named Holland, Michigan, is the best known of them all.

One of the great things about tulips is that they can be grown from bulbs. That means that once you plant them in your garden, they can come up year after year. Though most people think of single tulips in bright yellow, red, and pink hues, there are actually many varieties of tulips, including double, fringed, and multicolor.

Pro Tip: Remember that to enjoy tulips in the spring, you’ll need to plant them in the fall.

Where To Buy

Some large stores such as Costco and Home Depot carry tulip bulbs. If you want to order them online, Breck’s and Holland Bulb Farms offer large selections.

2. Irises

France

The national flower of France is the beautiful iris. These delicate blooms are the model for the symbol of the French monarchy, the fleur-de-lis. There are some 300 flowers in the iris family, with colors ranging from quite subtle to very vibrant. We especially love the purple and blue varieties.

Areas around the Loire Valley offer many wonderful places to view irises; there is even a sightseeing circuit you can follow to see them.

Like tulips, irises can be grown from bulbs.

Where To Buy

Gilbert H. Wild and Son has a large selection of iris bulbs and offers planting and growing instructions as well.

3. Red Poppies

Belgium

Huge swaths of red poppies are bound to bring to mind images of Flanders Fields in Belgium, where it was said the flowers grew to memorialize the fallen soldiers of World War I. Since then, the red poppy has become a symbol of remembrance and hope.

Indeed, poppies are beautiful, especially when several plants bloom together. Red poppies can be grown from seeds.

Where To Buy

Red poppy seeds are available at many online stores, including High Country Gardens.

4. Lilies Of The Valley

Finland

The tiny strands of bell-like flowers on the lily of the valley will add fragrance and beauty to any garden. The blooms are small and delicate and may get hidden by larger plants that demand more space. But Finland appreciates the little blooms — the lily of the valley is its national flower.

Representing purity, sweetness, and beauty, the flower’s unmistakable fragrance has been harnessed by perfumers as a desirable feminine scent.

Where To Buy

You can purchase lilies of the valley from Michigan Bulb Co. online.

5. Marguerite Daisies

Denmark

A favorite flower of the Danish queen, the Marguerite daisy is also associated with Denmark because it is one of the countries where this flower grows best.

The Marguerite daisy comes in many delightful colors like yellow, pink, purple, white, and even blue. Gardeners love these bright blooms, not only because they grow easily in abundance, but also because they attract butterflies. These lovely flowers are great for cutting and for bouquets as well.

Where To Buy

Marguerite daisies can be found at garden stores like Lowe’s, and you can purchase seeds online from Under The Sun Seeds among other shops.

A lavender field. — Sue Reddel and Diana Laskaris

6. Lavender

Portugal And France

While lavender is often associated with the Provence region of France, it is actually the floral emblem of Portugal. Visitors to Portugal and Provence in the spring and early summer will find huge fields of lavender to enjoy.

These magnificent purple blossoms are as noted for their delightful and relaxing aroma as for their color. Oils, soaps, balms, sprays, and sachets of lavender offer therapeutic properties and are often used to help people sleep.

Pro Tip: When planting lavender in your garden, remember that it is in the mint family. This means that it will grow easily and spread out quite a bit. Use the dried blooms to make potpourri and herbal blends.

Where To Buy

You can purchase French Provence lavender on Etsy.

7. Gladioli

South Africa

The gladiolus is native to sub-Saharan Africa, and particularly South Africa.

Gladioli come in a wide array of colors, sizes, and shapes, but the one thing they all have in common is an impressive display. We’re partial to the long stems that boast big red blooms. They’re simply spectacular, and understandably quite a favorite with avid gardeners and beginners alike.

We love to see all the different colors spring up in our garden. They make quite a show!

Where To Buy

Gladioli can be grown from bulbs. You can buy them at many home supply stores and garden shops, as well as online from K. van Bourgondien.

8. Queen Anne’s Lace

Great Britain And North America

According to legend, Queen Anne of England pricked her finger while attempting a challenge by her friends to create lace as beautiful as a flower. A drop of her blood fell upon the flower, making a purple-red center, and the flower was thereafter called Queen’s Anne’s lace.

Interestingly, this wildflower belongs to the carrot family, and the head is sometimes eaten raw in salads or lightly battered and fried. Though we associate the name with the Queen and Great Britain, the flower is commonly found along roadsides and in unused fields in North America.

Where To Buy

You can find Queen Anne’s lace seeds online at The Vermont Wildflower Farm and Grow Organic.

9. Sunflowers

Ukraine

While we loved driving past fields of sunflowers in France, we have to acknowledge that the sunflower is the floral pride and joy of Ukraine. Sunflowers have a long history in Ukraine. They were woven into celebratory headpieces for young maidens, figured prominently on fabrics and household items, and were carved into wooden furniture. Sunflowers were believed to guard against bad fortune, evil spirits, and illness.

All you need to do is look at these big, bright yellow blooms to feel a bit of sunshine in your own life. The seeds can be eaten or made into oil. But you can simply let the flowers grow in your garden — and provide some wonderful treats for the birds and squirrels who visit you, too.

Where To Buy

You can find sunflower seeds at many garden centers. You can get giant sunflower seeds online at Gurney’s and Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.

We see flowers in so many places when we travel, from markets and gardens to roadsides and fields. We see flowers on the tabletops of the restaurants we visit and in the landscapes of the accommodations we stay in. When we plant them at home, their scent takes us back to the places we’ve traveled.

So many places have flowers that are special — we’ve only provided a glimpse into some of our favorites. We’re sure that there are many others you’ve discovered on your own travels. We hope we’ve inspired you to bring some of them into your home or plant them in your garden to enjoy even when you’re not traveling.

U.S. Space & Rocket Center: 8 Reasons You And Your Grandchildren Will Love It

Dubbed “Rocket City,” the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, opened in 1970 to celebrate the nation’s space exploration. The museum is owned by the state of Alabama and is part of the Smithsonian Institution. It is the world’s largest space museum, featuring more than 1,500 space artifacts, and is the perfect place for families to learn about the United States space program.

Here are eight reasons why you and your grandkids will enjoy a visit.

1. It Provides A Fascinating Glimpse Into The Past

The U.S. Space & Rocket Center has two main buildings and two outdoor areas, Rocket Park and Shuttle Park. It’s home to the world’s only full-scale space shuttle, as well as artifacts like the Apollo 16 Command Module and a Shuttle Training Aircraft. A walk around the campus is like a trip back in time. It’s an excellent opportunity for older generations to share stories with their grandchildren about these historic moments.

Each exhibit room covers a different aspect of the U.S. space journey. One is dedicated to the Apollo program and features the spacesuits used on the mission, a lunar lander, and an actual moon rock from the Apollo 12 mission.

One of the highlights is suspended in the air inside the Davidson Center. The Saturn V moon rocket, a National Historic Landmark, was used to launch astronauts to the moon and back. NASA used the rocket first during the Apollo 8 mission. This type of rocket was also used during the infamous Apollo 13 mission. Keep wandering around the exhibit hall to learn more about the Saturn program.

Rocket Park behind the museum. — Michael Gordon / Shutterstock

Rocket Park is located outside behind the building. It features old NASA rockets as well as U.S. Army missiles. Be sure to check out the PGM-19 Jupiter — it launched the first creatures into space, two monkeys named Able and Baker. Their mission paved the way for human space exploration. After retiring, Baker lived out her years at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center. Also in Rocket Park is a mock-up of the lunar lander, complete with an American flag planted on the moon’s surface.

Wander over to Shuttle Park, also outside on the grounds. There, you’ll find the Space Shuttle Orbiter Pathfinder, the first orbiter ever built, and a shuttle training aircraft that pilots used to learn how to land the orbiter.

2. You Can Touch (Almost) Everything

At the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, you can touch (almost) everything! Each exhibit room has interactive elements. You can walk into a space station to see where astronauts store their food and clothes and how they communicate. Or you can lie down in a spacecraft to push all the buttons and flip all the switches. You can even sit on one of the rovers and turn its steering wheel, or make footprints on the moon’s surface while learning about the nation’s moon landing.

3. A Variety Of Shows Are Available

The U.S. Space & Rocket Center is home to several theaters that screen shows throughout the year. The National Geographic Theater inside the Davidson Center has a 52-foot screen, and many movies are shown in 3-D. The Intuitive Planetarium is a full-dome theater with 8K digital capability. Be sure to grab some food and drinks in the space-themed lobby before heading in to the show.

The movies do cost extra. You can buy a combo ticket that includes one movie, but you can add on more movies for a discounted price. Senior discounts are available for the combo tickets.

Exhibits and simulators in the Space and Rocket Center. — Michael Gordon / Shutterstock

4. You Can Live Like An Astronaut

You can experience what astronauts feel on the many simulators and rides at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center. All of these are included in regular admission.

Inside the main museum building, go inside the HyperShip, a motion-based simulator that will take you on a 5-minute virtual ride. Outside, there’s the G-Force Accelerator that simulates 3 Gs of force. Try to push against it — it’s hard! Step it up a notch with 4 Gs of force on the Moon Shot. This ride will launch you 140 feet into the air in under 3 seconds. There’s a smaller (and tamer!) version for kids inside the Kids Cosmos Energy Depletion Zone. It also has areas where the grandkids can climb and play.

Check the rules of each simulator; some are not good for those with certain medical conditions.

5. You Can Try Freeze-Dried Ice Cream

Don’t leave the U.S. Space & Rocket Center without trying the freeze-dried ice cream! It’s what the astronauts eat in space, and you can get it on Earth at any of the stores on the museum’s campus.

If you need something of more substance, the Mars Grill is a great place to refuel. Everything is made in-house, and there are a wide range of options, from hamburgers to soups to an all-you-can-eat salad bar. Try the Fried Martian (chicken tenders), Mars Taco Bowl, Rocket City Burrito, or Universe Fries (fries topped with chili, cheese, sour cream, and bacon). There are Mini Astronaut Meals for the little ones and beer and wine for the adults. And while you sit and eat, the grandkids can run around the play area inside the dining room.

6. There’s A Biergarten

The Biergarten allows visitors to eat and drink under the Saturn V moon rocket. It is open every Thursday evening from spring through fall. The Biergarten is family friendly and features authentic German food as well as German wines, and, of course, beer! There’s even live music, making it the perfect spot to unwind after a day of exploring. The Biergarten is free to enter, but you’ll need to bring money for food and drinks.

7. You Can Participate In Space Camp

At Space Camp, kids between 9 and 18 can learn about space and life as an astronaut. The campers spend the night in a replica of the International Space Station and experience simulators, engineering projects, and other hands-on activities.

The program is wildly popular and has grown to include Family Space Camp, a three-day, two-night adventure for the whole family. The camp’s simulators will make you feel like you’re launching to the International Space Station. You will also experience what it’s like without gravity and build and launch your own rocket. And if you arrive early for camp, you might be able to eat lunch with an astronaut!

8. You Can Take A Bus Tour Of The Marshall Space Flight Center

The Marshall Space Flight Center is a propulsion research center located next to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center. The center is one of NASA’s largest field offices, and its engineers conduct research and testing to make U.S. space travel possible.

You can add on a tour of the center to your U.S. Space & Rocket Center admission. The bus tour costs $20 and departs every day at 12:30 p.m. from the U.S. Space & Rocket Center’s main entrance. The tour lasts 2 hours and 30 minutes and is narrated by a professional guide. A highlight of the trip is the Redstone Test Stand. This National Historic Landmark is where NASA did static tests in the 1950s and, according to the National Park Service, it was the first test stand in the nation able to accommodate the entire launch vehicle for tests. Please note that you must be a U.S. citizen to take this tour.

What To Know Before You Go

Plan to spend most of the day at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center. You can buy tickets online, but if you want to cash in on one of the discounts, you’ll need to do that in person. Also, if anyone if your group is a member at any other museum, check in about discounts. We got free admission due to our membership at a science center back home!

Planning a trip to Huntsville? Here are eight great reasons to visit.

Best Road Trips Through The Andromeda Galaxy

Fasten your seatbelts, stock up on rocket fuel, and grab your spacesuits!

There’s no better place in the universe for a road trip than the Andromeda Galaxy.

With its one trillion stars and 460 globular clusters, there are countless off-the-beaten-path gems to discover in this beautiful spiral galaxy.

Plus, it has tons of history, as parts of the galaxy date back to over 10 billion years!

From the Mayall II cluster to the stunning G76, here are 10 of the best road trips to take through the Andromeda Galaxy.

A van under the stars. — misastudio / Shutterstock

HAPPY APRIL FOOLS’ DAY!

We wish it was possible to take a road trip through another galaxy! Maybe someday …

If you’d like to browse some legitimate road trips on good ol’ planet Earth, here are some of our top articles:

How To Spend A Perfect Day In Delft, Netherlands

Delft, in the Netherlands, is a speck of a town located in between two major cities, the commercial port of Rotterdam and The Hague, the capital of South Holland. While staying in Rotterdam, Delft was a quick 12-minute ride from Rotterdam Centraal train station.

A pint-sized version of Amsterdam, Delft has canals circulating the city, bikes instead of cars, and streets lined with handsome, three-story brick buildings from the 16th and 17th centuries.

Culturally, Delft was an important center for artists in the late 17th century and where the historic Dutch Golden Age of painting unfolded. Johannes Vermeer was the most recognized painter of the group, which also included Pieter de Hoogh, Frans Hals, Jan van Goyen, and Willem Kalf. They invented a new type of painting named genre painting, which depicted scenes of workers in everyday life and women tending to their children and daily chores.

Another significant thing Delft is known for is its production and manufacturing of Delftware pottery, a form of glazed earthenware, much like porcelain, that was invented in the 1500s.

Prinsenhof Museum

The premiere venue for viewing the finest of the Dutch Golden Age of painting is the Prinsenhof Museum. A former monastery built in the Middle Ages, it was the site of the assassination of Prince William of Orange, better known as William the Silent, in 1584. The bullet holes from the assassination are still visible on the main stairway.

The Prinsenhof is a municipal museum and its permanent collection features textiles, ceramics, and silverware. A major part of the museum is a comprehensive overview and history of the origins of Delftware, which was initially an attempt to recreate Chinese porcelain, but eventually earned a reputation of its own.

The Vermeer Centrum in Delft. — Kelvin Atkins / Shutterstock

On The Trail Of Vermeer

Johannes Vermeer, the Dutch master who painted the iconic Girl With a Pearl Earring, was born and lived in Delft. The city has designated a five-stop mini walking tour, during which you can discover all there is to know about the artist.

Vermeer Centrum is the only place in the world where you can view faithful reproductions of all of Vermeer’s paintings under one roof. The museum also incorporates the full personal and family history of the painter. The building has historic significance, as it was the site of St. Lucas Gilde, a craft guild to which Vermeer and his father belonged.

The Old Church in Delft has the original tombstone of Vermeer, who died in 1675 and was buried in the family plot along with his three children who died at an early age.

A 10-minute walk from the Center of Delft, Hookaide Harbor is the location where Vermeer painted his most famous cityscape. You can contemplate the view while enjoying a drink at the cafe.

If you want to fully indulge in the Vermeer experience, the Hotel Johannes Vermeer has a brasserie that offers a Vermeer-inspired menu.

The Old Church in Delft. — trabantos / Shutterstock

The Old Church And The New Church

Two churches reveal the history of Delft. The Old Church started as a simple wood structure in 1050, and in 1246, a 75-meter high gothic style building was built with a tower.

Based on legend from the mid-1300s, where a beggar and a man who gave him something to eat share a vision of a golden church assigned to Mary, the New Church was constructed. Its history relates more to the royal Orange family, whose tombs are encased in the church. You can climb up to the 85-foot tower to get a bird’s-eye view of Delft and parts of Rotterdam.

The Royal Delftware Museum and Factory in Delft. — Dafinchi / Shutterstock

Royal Delftware Museum And Factory: Shopping And History

A trip to Delft would not be complete without visiting the Royal Delftware Museum and Factory, a pleasant 15-minute walk from the old quarter of the city on a flat, scenic pathway with canals.

Delftware, the unique blue and white ceramic porcelain, was invented in Delft in the 1500s, and Royal Delftware Factory is the last remaining factory — out of the original 17 that existed in the 1600s — where the pottery is produced by hand.

The museum relates the history of the rise and fall of the once thriving industry in the 1700s, which eventually was curtailed by other factories in Europe who used the same technique. By the 1900s, there were only a handful of factories still making Delftware by hand as mass market production in other countries brought down prices.

The remaining part of the museum displays a vast collection of elaborately decorated vases, plates, and tableware from the different centuries. One room features modern day sculptures by contemporary artists and ceramicists who mix the classic patterns with present-day materials. A wonderful surprise is the replica of The Night Watch painting by Rembrandt done in Delft tile.

In the factory part of the complex, you can witness the step-by-step process of the porcelain being made. A series of glass booths have artisans painting various objects by hand before they’re given the final glaze.

The shop has an extensive collection of traditional Delftware along with contemporary pieces, whereby Royal Delftware invites designers to create new product lines. Categories include dining pieces, home accessories, and jewelry. During the holidays, there’s a gallery dedicated to specially made Christmas gifts and ornaments.

Food Shops

Rows of mouth-watering rounds of Gouda cheese line the windows of the Henri Willing cheese shop, located on the Grote Markt square. Inside the shop, the cow, sheep, and goat milk cheeses are wrapped in various colors, designating the almost overwhelming array of familiar and “exotic” flavors, which include truffle, red chili pepper, coconut, pesto, Italian herb, and honey. The delightful staff dressed in traditional, Dutch folk costumes are friendly and happy to dispense advice.

Dutch chocolate is known as some of the finest in Europe, and Van der Burgh Chocolaad proves this with its handmade products. You can actually see the chocolate being made in the shop’s open kitchen. The chocolate bars, which have high percentages of cacao, are beautifully wrapped in paisley print paper with satin bows, and a chocolate bar wrapped with an image of Girl with a Pearl Earring makes a fun gift. Van der Burgh also makes fudge, a rarity outside the United States, and packages it in mustard color and aqua blue tins. There’s a selection of vegan chocolate bars available, too.

Restaurants

For a small city, Delft surprisingly has an extensive range of contemporary and ethnic restaurants including Italian, Thai, French, and Indian establishments. There’s even an Argentine steak house.

If you have time to indulge in either a long lunch or dinner, you will be justly rewarded with up-to-the-moment cuisine and the relaxed but elegant ambience at Het Vermeertje. Chef Ewart de Koning and his wife Cynthia go out of their way to make sure their guests feel right at home, and Ewart will cook a special meal just for you. If you are adventurous, go for their surprise tasting menu of either three, four, or five courses, or enjoy the a la carte specialties such as Guinea fowl with smoked bacon and polenta; vegetarian beet Wellington with blue cheese, celeriac, and portobello mushrooms; or schnitzel with a fried egg. Het Vermeertje also has a congenial bar and serves some of the best cocktails in Delft, including a watermelon margarita and Long Island green tea with mango.

For a more casual, cafe-style joint, Keft offers prime-grade coffee, a full breakfast menu with pancakes, eggs, waffles, and granola, plus all-organic lunch dishes in a fun, lively atmosphere. Local crafts and gifts for sale are interspersed throughout the cafe.

Top-notch seafood is the star at Crabbetje Brasserie, where specialties include fresh oysters, scallops, cod, lobster thermidor, and Dover sole.

Shopping

Even though Delft is a tourist destination, there are many individual boutiques with original merchandise and local crafts.

It could be overwhelming to buy Delftware, with dozens of shops in the tourist areas claiming that their merchandise is authentic, so a smart choice would be to shop at Antiques from Delft. Set on the main market square, owner Laurens Puntman has been in business for over 30 years and is happy to share his extensive knowledge and experience with customers. He will advise you on your purchases and will also tell you how to spot fakes and differentiate them from real pieces. His collection ranges from 17th century pieces, worth four to five figures in value, to a box filled with tiles for 15 and 20 euros.

Headed for the Netherlands? Meet Giethoorn, a village in the Netherlands without roads or cars, and Waanders In De Broeren, the beautiful Netherlands bookshop set in a former church.