Chichester

 Over the half-term, we didn't want to go too far to get some history in us. So after a bit of research, we thought we'll pop into Chichester. It is a very family-friendly city and with lots of Roman history. We got lucky as the day we picked was during the Roman Week where they had celebrations going. Do visit https://www.thenovium.org/romanweek to find out more about events.

On our way to the first stop, we walked through the historic town and the beautiful Chichester Cathedral. We didn't go inside the Cathedral but it's a majestic building. We headed to the Novium Museum which is free to visit. Thy had a Lego exhibition happening which had an extra fee. The exhibition was small but had Lego constructions of famous buildings around the world including a life-size model of the coral reef! They also had a Lego play area where we spent some time building. We then visited the rest of the museum. The museum was over 2 floors with lots to explore and do for kids. The second view has some artefacts with lovely views of the cathedral. The first floor had the history of Chichester with roman games and a book corner. The ground floor has remnants of ruins and mosaics. There were activities such as object handling and reproducing a statues head. The museum has a cute little gift shop too.

If you have time, you can also visit bigger roman ruins at Fishbourne Roman Palace. We didn't have time as we were heading to the Weald and Download Living Museum. A living museum is an open air museum that recreates the past with reconstruction of old houses/building with demonstrations and people walking around in historic attire. This museum is set in such a cute little village too with funny names for pubs and roads. You can spend a nice day out there with lovely spots for picnics but they also have a nice cafe. The museum shows us how people lived over the year with no specific period. We entered and explored everything the museum had to offer. It has some lovely cottages. Unfortunately, it did't have as many demonstrations as other living museum we visited. We saw a weaving demonstration with flax seeds. There were kids activities dotted around the place which kept the kids busy. There is a woodland walk which takes you around the museum if everyone has the energy. There's also a nice lake with a working watermill. There's also live animals such as chickens, ducks, cockerel walking around so take them into consideration. Overall a nice afternoon spent at the museum but not what we were expecting in comparison to what we experienced in other living museum.

Close to the living museum is the West Dean Gardens, a botanical garden. If you are making a weekend in Chichester then this could be worth a visit too. The kids were tired and this mummy was tired too after another day of successful exploration.