31 August 2008

Scientific walking tour of London

Nature tour I've been involved in a conference on science blogging for the past day or two, and in preparing for it before that, hence the infrequent posts this week. As part of the proceedings, Nature Network London editor Matt Brown organized an impressive scientific walking tour of London for some of the people attending the meeting. We had such a great day that I thought I would share his itinerary here, in case anyone planning to visit the city would like to recreate it, or at any rate know of these wonderful places that can be seen in the space of a few hours. Many thanks to Matt for such a mind-expanding and sociable day.


10.30 am Tour of Nature's offices (aim to get here for 10.20), kindly conducted by Maxine Clarke.
11.30 am Wellcome Collection - awesome museum of medical curiosities. Includes lots of dead bodies. Free entry.
12.30 Head off to get lunch, taking in some of the blue plaques and scientific sights of interest in Bloomsbury and Soho. [Lunch was at an outside cafe in Russell Square.]
2.00 Tour and talk at the Linnean Society.
2.30 Pop into the Geological Society of London to look at the famous William Smith geology map.
2.45 Whistlestop tour of the Mayfair/St James area, including the Royal Institution, Royal Society, Newton's House and many other places.
4.30 Behind the scenes tour of the Darwin Centre - part of the Natural History Museum - courtesy of Karen James.

Update: photo by Martin Fenner. I'm the bag lady in the middle. Matt is to my left, with dark jacket and blue jeans. For more tour pictures, see Martin's Flickr stream.

31 Aug 2008 16:54:47 | Science

3 Comments

Kerrie

Sounds a good tour maxine. When we were last in London we went on a "ghostly" tour and a murder mystery trail. They were night ones, excellent, led by someone we recognised as an actor whom we had seen in Midsomer Murders and some other programme.

Posted by: Kerrie | 01 September 2008 at 04:13

Susan Balée

This walking tour sounds fantastic, Maxine! I would love to take it .... We have a very good historical/cultural tour here run by the Rosenbach Museum of the book -- with the assistance of some very sharp U. of Penn. history grad students. So when are you visiting Philly?

Posted by: Susan Balée | 03 September 2008 at 13:52

Maxine

Not soon enough, Susan!

Posted by: Maxine | 03 September 2008 at 18:25

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