London Transport Museum

We got a free day pass to the London Transport Museum with our Hidden London tour of Euston a few weeks ago, so we decided to head along this morning.

The walkway into the museum looked like folded up paper tube maps, featuring subways and metros from around the world.

We then stepped into the lift which took us back in time to the 1800s.

This area featured some of the earliest forms of transport in London, from boats and horse drawn carts to early trams and carriages.

London's first horse drawn carriage went right past our house on Kennington Park Road.

This badge was worn on the arm of the canal boat drivers, like the taxi medallion of it's day.

There was an amazing audio recording playing in the Omnibus with the rules to ride, including "dogs must be small and confined by a string".

Down one level, came the introduction of the tube train with the Metropolitan line in 1863.

Tom's had his eye out for a signal lantern like this to use as a bedside light.

I loved all the vintage tube posters, especially the demonic looking one for Chislehurst Caves.

There were lots of drawers filled with old transport memorobilla to open.

Early riders used to get metal badges with their names engraved on for their rail passes.

There was an amazing exhibition called Poster Girls, featuring a century of art from female artists created for London Transport.

I loved all the different posters for attractions at the stations, especially the floral ones for Kew Gardens.

However, the posters for the zoo were my absolute favourite. Especially, this one with the animals looking at all the Londoners in cages.

We then headed downstairs to check out the actual buses and trains.

I liked this mirror for drivers to check their appearance with a check-list of things to get right.

There's something a little strange about looking around full-scale replicas of tube stations and trains when you could go just go outside and see a real one.

It was cool to see the retro trains though, including this one from the Northern Line which has tiny slits for windows and used to run underneath our house.

I guess they didn't use to go overground so there was nothing to see anyway.

It was all the old tube memorobillia that made us jealous, especially the lovely old roundels.

I loved that these handles were shaped like the products they were advertising.

There was an amazing advert for the Tate Modern with a tube map made out of tubes of paint.

And I always love to browse displays of lost property found on the tube.

Afterwards we went for lunch at Inamo in Covent Garden, promising cyber dining and tasty sushi.

It was fun drawing on the tables and you could even watch a webcam of the sushi chefs preparing your food in the kitchen.

We ordered some of their Asian tapas including the Salt & Pepper Squid and Wasabi Fries but weren't too impressed. Our waitress also spilled half of our squid on the tray and didn't top us up.

However the Dragon Roll we ordered was awesome and had a cute little dragon face.