Old Boma Museum, Arusha

Advantages: Find out how good our modern hospitals are!
Disadvantages: Not for the disabled

...Before you visit here - why not walk through Guy's Hospital which is on the same road on the opposite side (St. Thomas Street). Walk through the dingy corridors and the minor injuries unit - it's a great hospital but the peeling paint doesn't exactly inspire confidence. Then walk down to the Old Operating Theatre and walk up those steep steps and step back in time to the early days of medicine. The days of no anaesthetic, just a bottle of whisky. Where the blood splattered operating theatre would have straw put down on it for the next patient. Hygiene wasn't even known about. Then you think how great modern medicine is and how much we have achieved in the past 2 centuries. You can stand in the Operating theatre - and you can imagine what it would be like to look on at a man's leg being amputated. There are loads of observers... Read review

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Advantages: Free entry, A "feel good" museum, Suitable for all ages
Disadvantages: Cramped when busy, Visitor facilities could be better

...by an attendant and as the disabled toilet is in the basement (where there are no displays) then an escort is needed to that as well. Not a perfect situation, but the low child-friendly cases mean that the displays can be enjoyed by visitors in wheelchairs at least. Information about the museum can also be provided in large-print and Braille editions on request (although I don’t know how much this covers). **My opinion** It is easy to see just why the Edinburgh Museum of Childhood is so popular with adults and children alike – it is a “feel good” museum of gentle nostalgia that is suitable for all ages. The nearest this museum gets to being controversial is not opening on Sundays! Although the style of interpretation does feel quite old fashioned (little has changed since the redesign of 1987) and I could easily sit... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: Free, The viewing workshop, changing displays
Disadvantages: Parking, not really worth travelling to from outside Yorkshire

...for disabled access, and into the museum though a second set of doors. Once inside you are greeted with a light and airy big room as the roof is mostly glass and you instantly can see what's on offer to view as the whole museum is laid out over one floor space. It was smaller that I thought it would be but this historic building is a good venue to display the museum collection. At the entrance to the right there is a collection of classic and historic motorcycles which has some of the great names from the past like Vincent, Velocette and of course some old Triumph's. Directly behind them is the first of two workshops where they carry out the restoration work and at the time when I visited they were working on an old bi-plane as the museum is about transport and not just road vehicles. To the right the was the second of the workshops... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful