Here's some information on the process of producing the video. http://puddinglanedmuga.blogspot.co.uk/

Something similar even more educational I suppose.

From a Frenchman, Diviacus, contributing on the American forum Historum and also on the French forum Passion Histoire...

http://historum.com/european-history/64494-paris-monuments-3d-virtual-visits

Kind regards, Paul.

Interesting PR.  Back in the late 1970s I visited the then newish Museum of London and one of the visitor hosts [were they termed thus back then?] asked if I wanted to see the "Fire of London Experience".  Somehow they had arranged a model of pre-fire London behind glass to demonstrate the starting and spread of the fire.  There was also an audio track.  In my opinion - and I in no way claim to be an expert - it was very good for its time, so I guess the video you have posted about takes this to the next level.

Slightly off-topic, about thirteen and a half years ago I worked in an office with a lady who had had a previous job as a "monk" in the London Dungeon.  This particular "Monk" had a daughter.

Has anyone here ever visited the London Dungeon thingy, especially recently? Is it worth the admission price if one is also bringing two kids in tow? I'm vaguely planning a trip later in the year and trying to line up an itinerary of sorts.

PaulRyckier wrote:

Something similar even more educational I suppose.

From a Frenchman, Diviacus, contributing on the American forum Historum and also on the French forum Passion Histoire...

http://historum.com/european-history/64494-paris-monuments-3d-virtual-visits

Kind regards, Paul.

I see now that the link connect to the general site of "Historum"...

Here is the link from Diviacus that I wanted to show:

http://paris.3ds.com/en-index.html#Heritage

Kind regards, Paul.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Interesting PR.  Back in the late 1970s I visited the then newish Museum of London and one of the visitor hosts [were they termed thus back then?] asked if I wanted to see the "Fire of London Experience".  Somehow they had arranged a model of pre-fire London behind glass to demonstrate the starting and spread of the fire.  There was also an audio track.  In my opinion - and I in no way claim to be an expert - it was very good for its time, so I guess the video you have posted about takes this to the next level.

Slightly off-topic, about thirteen and a half years ago I worked in an office with a lady who had had a previous job as a "monk" in the London Dungeon.  This particular "Monk" had a daughter.

Lady in retirement,

is the message for me "PR"? I thought it was for Ferval?

"Back in the late 1970s I visited the then newish Museum of London and one of the visitor hosts [were they termed thus back then?] asked if I wanted to see the "Fire of London Experience".  Somehow they had arranged a model of pre-fire London behind glass to demonstrate the starting and spread of the fire.  There was also an audio track.  In my opinion - and I in no way claim to be an expert - it was very good for its time"

I am nearly sure I saw the same thing in the late 1970s (then on visit to London on a trip from Belgium and a lot younger than now   )

I don't completely understand: "This particular "Monk" had a daughter." Or perhaps as a Dutch speaking one I don't catch all the finesses of the English language?

Was first not understanding the "London Dungeon" but thanks to Nordmann...
And see they export their "horror" to Amsterdam too ...
http://www.thedungeons.com/amsterdam/nl/

Kind regards and with esteem,

Paul.

The London Dungeon - as I see Nordmann has already explained - is a place where horrific history is displayed - this is the link to the London one, which seems to be mostly publicity for the site  http://www.thedungeons.com/london/en/.  I haven't been there recently so can't confirm to Nordmann whether or not it is worth a visit for the children nowadays. About 6 years ago a friend had taken some children to the London Dungeon and said they liked it but the cost she thought was expensive. For PR, the sentence about the monk having a daughter was me trying to be humorous and failing miserably. The former work colleague I mentioned had once had a job dressing up as a monk at the London Dungeon and she had a daughter in real life.  It is entirely my fault PR for not explaining clearly.  The average British person I am afraid does not know languages other than English very well (there are exceptions) and tends to take it for granted that people from abroad are adept at English, which many non-British people are though the slang and colloquial English terms are bound to be more difficult.  I can speak reasonable French though in no way am I bilingual and a bit of Spanish but my Dutch is limited to Mynheer and Mewrouw and I've probably written even those two words incorrectly ...... so, PR, your English is much better than my non-existent Dutch and Flemish.

My message is for everybody - PR, ferval and Nordmann and any members of Res Historica who might find it of interest.

LIR,

"For PR, the sentence about the monk having a daughter was me trying to be humorous and failing miserably. The former work colleague I mentioned had once had a job dressing up as a monk at the London Dungeon and she had a daughter in real life."

No, no lady. Now I see...No, I think it is my Belgian Roman-Catholic childhood, which lets me see "this sentence" in quite a "normal"   tendency...

In my childhood we had in our Roman-Catholic "college" some priests as teachers, still in the then "normal" "tenue" (dress?). I suppose Nordmann had the same experience in his childhood's Ireland. Well, of these five or six priest-teachers that I have known at least two of them had married and were no longer priests. (we have an expression for that but I don't find a translation: "z'n kap over de haag smijten" (throw his hood over the hedge?). I met one of them in Bruges with his wife. Nearly a movie star. The former priest wasn't bad either. And they had a daughter, also a beautiful child. And we haven't spoken yet about the Belgian monks, nearly as in the middle-ages, each one his mistress...and I suppose as contraceptives were forbidden...

Kind regards and with esteem for all your other messages...hmm... including this one too...

Paul.

Addendum to previous message.

About the "tenue" of the priests in those days:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Clerical_clothing.jpg

(if someone of the contributors can make a picture of it, please)


Done

Two good-looking guys. The one on the right is in what we call a "soutane" (cassock?) (that was the dress we saw in our college in the Fifties...)

And if these two guys from the photograph can stay "celibataire"...hmm...but God's paths are strange (curious? , miraculous?)...

Kind regards, Paul.

Having looked at the London Dungeon website I'm not sure that it's really worth it. The price is a bit steep for 90 minutes' entertainment for three people. However if the history aspect isn't all bosh I'd still consider it - anyone been there who could comment on it? Lir?

Paul, you have reminded me of an old joke. Forgive me if you have heard it:

A monk - let's call him Brother Barnaby - is assigned to the transcription department in the monastery and upon taking up his post is disappointed to find that all the other monks there are content to copy from copies, and from copies of copies, and so on. Barnaby however wishes to be the best and most dependable transcriber in the business and insists to the abbot that he be allowed access to the originals so that he can copy directly from them and therefore not risk garbling god's word through compound error. The abbot, touched by Barnaby's devotion, grants him leave to proceed but since the original scriptures are so venerable and valuable insists that he do his copying in the cellar strongroom where these most precious of documents are stored.

As the days progress and Barnaby does not re-emerge from the cellar his fellow monks at first are impressed at the lad's dedication to his vocation. However as days become weeks and he still has not emerged this turns to genuine concern about his well-being. Eventually they explain their concerns to the abbot who immediately authorises they go down to the strongroom and see what's up. When they burst into the cell they find Barnaby there, curled up in a corner and crying his eyes out.

"Brother Barnaby," they all shout in unison. "What ails you?"
Barnaby points with a trembling finger to the table upon which he had been transcribing the church's earliest texts.
"Celebrate!" he wails. "The word is f**king 'celebrate', not ' celibate'!!!!!"

I started replying to this but must have hit a wrong key.  I'm afraid the folks who run some of the London tourist sites are virtually operating robbery with silence.  The state museums are still free but sometimes the special exhibitions within the museum are costly.  Some of the private museums are interesting but I can't think of any that are free.  There's the surgery museum http://www.thegarret.org.uk/ but would that be too gruesome for little ones?  The original London Walks did some good tours but not all are child friendly though some are.  This is the website address http://www.londonwalks.com/.  I think you used to get more bang for your buck if you bought entitlement to more than one tour.  It's bound to have gone up in price in the three and a bit years since I left London. I'll get my thinking cap on and see if I can recall any other places of interest.

I see what Paul meant about to whom I was replying now - that ferval was the originator of the thread.

Nordmann and PR seem to have had much more interesting childhoods than I did at least in regard to their Catholic upbringings - forty and odd years ago there was a priest and a nun who eloped to get married from my local parish but I was working away from home at the time.

LIR,

I learn the "good" English on this forum and btw thanks for the reply.

I learned a new expression today

"to get more bang for your buck"

http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/more+bang+for+buck

"bang" in Dutch is "afraid", but we have also a word for "bang"  ...

"I'll get my thinking cap on"

What an expressive term...

Kind regards and with esteem, Paul.

Regarding places to visit in London that are not unreasonably expensive, I found the following two suggestions on a thread on historyhoney.com about London Off the Beaten Track (the other suggestions appertained to wine bars and so forth so not child-friendly)  http://www.londontown.com/LondonInformation/Attraction/Banqueting_House/eb83/  (the banqueting house is £5 to adults but free to under 16s though it closes earlier on a Saturday - http://www.geffrye-museum.org.uk/aboutus/ which is free.  I don't think there's anything interactive for youngsters at these two places - nor do I know if there is anything interactive at the London Transport Museum http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/visit/plan-your-visit/opening-times-and-tickets.  The Transport Museum is (in my opinion) expensive for adults at £15 entry fee though it is free for under 17s (under 12s must be accompanied by an adult).  The dinosaurs (even the replicas) at the Natural History Museum usually appeal to children.

Thanks for the tips, Lir. The Banqueting House and the Geffrye are both places that I would not have thought of. In fact I had never even heard of the Geffrye and it sounds fascinating. Here in Oslo they have reconstructed a 19th century "gård" in the Folk Museum in which each apartment has been decorated in the style of different decades throughout the 20th century. It's a bit spooky actually when one encounters one's complete childhood domestic environment in a museum - especially when it's not even close to being the most recent exhibit!

"Interactive" and "kiddie-friendly" aren't an issue with me and my travelling companions. We've all outgrown these concepts as presented currently in museums and the like, even the eight year old.

Nordmann, I don't know if the kids might like The Foundling Museum which I enjoyed a couple of years ago.  Quite small, just three or four rooms, with bits about the kids who were housed here, their clothes, their work, their health etc, the people involved in setting it up and running it,  and I think there is an art gallery too.  I don't know exactly where it is, but just a corner or two from the British Museum.  There is a park nearby which is only for adults if they are accompanied by children. 

http://www.foundlingmuseum.org.uk/

Caro is right - there are some great little museums in London.  I worked near the British Museum at the end of  2006 to about May of 2007.  The Charles Dickens Museum is also in that vicinity but cheap it isnt' :-Adult:  £8.00   Concession:  £6.00      Child 6-16 years:  £4.0   Children under 6 years:  Free. This is the website link just in case:- http://www.dickensmuseum.com    For some reason (this is an edit) the prices for the cartoon museum aren't showing in the box - maybe because I cut and pasted from the website - but if you "mouse" over the blank part of the box it shows up - did for me at least. The Cartoon Museum is likewise in that neighbourhood http://www.cartoonmuseum.org/  Their charges (at time of typing this) are
Adults:     £7      
Conc:       £5            
Student:   £3  
FREE:       Under-18s, registered disabled and carer    (Children 12 or under must be accompanied by an adult).

That corner of London just breaths history - alas the job I was doing at the time was so pressurised I didn't really have time to make the best of the surroundings. There was an exhibition about Tutenkhamen (sp???) at British Museum at the time and I made a quip which wasn't entirely jokey to a friend that the Egyptian mummies looked in better nick than me ....

There is also the Sherlock Holmes Museum - not in Bloomsbury but at 221 Baker Street.  That's £8 for an adult and £5 per child - so again not exactly bargain basement prices.  This is the link just in case http://www.sherlock-holmes.co.uk/

Some great suggestions. Thanks Caro and LiR!