Science Museum

Puffing Billy, one of the world's oldest surviving steam locomotives, and the Apollo 10 command module that carried three astronauts around the Moon both stand on the ground floor of the Science Museum on Exhibition Road. They sit among landmark objects in the Making the Modern World gallery, which traces centuries of invention through the machines themselves.

Beyond it, the Energy Hall fills with the great beams and flywheels of the steam engines that powered British industry. Upper floors cover flight, medicine, mathematics and computing, where Charles Babbage's Difference Engine No. 2, built to his nineteenth-century design, shows how a calculating machine works in brass and steel. Hands-on galleries, including Wonderlab, let children test the principles behind the displays.

The museum grew out of the South Kensington Museum founded after the Great Exhibition of 1851, and it draws nearly three million visitors a year. It suits families and anyone curious about how things work, and covering the main galleries easily takes half a day.