The Imperial War Museum

This past Saturday afternoon I visited the Imperial War Museum on The South Bank. In general War Museums and cultural museums can be odd because of all of the strange attempts to recreate reality using mannequins, multimedia and other props. The British Museum has artifacts and the National Gallery has art hanging on the wall but The Imperial War museum, for example, has a recreation of "The Trench Experience". It was so bizarre, in a dark room one could walk through a world war I trench with English soldiers reading letters from home, a man being operated on, and a soldier advancing out of the line. An attempt was made even to recreate the smell of a World War I trench. It smelled something like a combination of Urine and Gunpowder. It really was fascinating and I really believe that Museums in London are among the best in the world and what is so amazing is that they are all free to visitors.