Seven floors of science and engineering, free in South Kensington. Apollo capsules, steam engines and hands-on halls.
The lowdown
The Science Museum is seven floors of how the modern world got built, and the main galleries are all free. Stephenson's Rocket, a real Apollo command module, the first jet engines, the code-breaking machines, laid out across halls big enough to park a plane in.
It is properly hands-on in places and a brilliant rainy-day fix, especially with kids, though it floors grown-up nerds just as hard. The Making the Modern World gallery on the ground floor is the greatest-hits room if you are short on time.
Worth being straight about the money. The permanent galleries are free, but the IMAX cinema, the flight simulators and the Wonderlab interactive zone are ticketed. You can still have a cracking few hours without paying for a single one of them.
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