Giants of Patagonia dinosaur exhibition

Several dinosaur exhibitions are on offer at the moment in Budapest. Last weekend we decided to pay a visit to the Hungarian Natural History Museum and check out the giants of Patagonia, for the following reasons:

1. A Dinoszauruszok Élete (Life of the Dinosaurs) at Millenaris seems too expensive. Yes, it features 50 moving dinosaurs and is allegedly very impressive, plus kids can ride on a dinosaur back. Still, for that price (8500 Ft for a family ticket during the week, 9900 Ft during the weekend) it is still very plastic looking. We saw something similar several years ago at Köki terminal, and it was for free:)

2. Dinók nyomában: Interaktív Kiállítás és Paleopark seems interesting for bigger kids, at least school age I would say. P might enjoy it, but Ilija is definitely too small.

3. Natural History museum features real-size skeletons, and this is what I wanted the boys to see. As we found out when we got there, there is one more dino exhibition in the backyard, the Dinokert (Dino Garden), Péter Csisztu and Zoltán Peredy sculptors dinosaur reconstructions.

Good news was that entrance was free for the kids, bad news was that I needed two tickets, one for each exhibition. Natural History Museum is free for families every 1st Sunday of the month, but only for permanent exhibitions (which none of these two is).

The WOW moment happened as soon as we got in because above the whole entrance area into the museum there is a GIANT whale skeleton hanging. P was completely in awe, and I knew at that point that there is going to have to be something supernatural inside if we were going to top that.

Apparently, the skeletons of the biggest dinosaurs ever to have walked the earth were found in Patagonia, so we were very excited about what we were about to see. And probably not only dinosaurs, but people Giants too (affiliate link), but that is a different story.

Carnotaurus – meat-eating bull

I was trying really hard to read the names out loud properly, but all P wanted to know if dinosaurs ate mice, and where the T-Rex is. So we found something better!

Giganotosaurus was a terrifying 10-ton meat-eater 14m long, 7m tall and about three tons heavier than North America’s T-Rex.

Inside part was much more interesting than the outside. Plastic dinosaurs were not their cup of tea (and mine either), they were more interested in the gravel, so I’d say not worth a separate 1000 Ft ticket. However, we did find something interesting for us personally in that backyard: Elijah’s well. (Ilija is Elijah in English:)

Ilija on Elijah’s Well

On our way out, a nice guy working at the museum took us through the dining room to see the elephant skeleton. I am not sure why he did that and if it is normal procedure, but that elephant looked strangely petite compared to everything else we’ve seen that day.

And that was our last Saturday program. This weekend will be rainy, so we Dinosaurs: Giants of Patagonia (IMAX) Blu-ray 3D on the agenda.