Today we’ve done something quite special: We’ve travelled to the Moon!
Well, okay maybe not the actual Moon in outer space, but about as close as you can get. We went to see the Museum of the Moon, which is currently exhibiting at Rochester Cathedral, until Wednesday 4 March. The Museum of the Moon is an installation artwork by UK artist Luke Jerram, and it’s main component is a huge internally lit-up spherical representation of the Moon, using high resolution NASA imagery to make up the lunar surface. Each cm of the sculpture represents c. 5 km of the actual Moon’s surface.
The Museum of the Moon has been exhibited in many different spaces across the world since 2016, and you can find more information about upcoming as well as previous venues here, on the my-moon.org website (link opens in new window).
I was super excited when I realised that the Moon was coming to a space not too far from us, and couldn’t wait to go there with Penguin and hubby. It would also give us the chance to have a look at Rochester Cathedral itself, as well as Rochester Castle which is just across from the cathedral. Both the castle and the cathedral are historically interesting buildings, worthy a visit even without the presence of the Moon, but we’ve not visited either of them before today.
To prepare us for our Rochester adventures, I searched out videos online of the castle, of the Museum of the Moon in the cathedral, and this video showing a walk through the parts of Rochester we were about to visit:
This was helpful both for myself and for Penguin, to give us a reasonably good idea about what to expect when we got there. We also did a little bit of repetition about the Moon itself, to connect some more factual learning to the experience of ‘visiting the Moon’.
Penguin then went onto YouTube and searched out an episode of Big Cook, Little Cook, about Clover the Cow who jumps over the Moon. I pointed out that it was unlikely there would be any cows hanging about by the Moon we were going to see in the cathedral.
It was raining when we arrived, so headed straight into the cathedral for cover. The Moon was magical and magnificent, and it wasn’t too crowded with visitors (I think we were lucky, as a large group of school children left just as we arrived). Penguin always likes to check out new spaces we visit by walking through them at reasonably high pace, so he wasn’t keen on stopping below the Moon straight away, but led us down into the crypt, where we found a recently opened exhibition called BIG History, showing historical artefacts related to the cathedral, and putting them into context. Penguin was still in a hurry to explore further, so we only had a quick look at some of the items there, before going back upstairs and then around other parts of the cathedral. It’s a very impressive and beautiful space, and we will definitely want to go back again at some point to take another look, preferably at a slower pace.
To learn more about the timeline of Rochester Cathedral, take a look at this page on their website: https://www.rochestercathedral.org/timeline
Once Penguin had familiarised himself with the cathedral, he was happy to take a closer look at the Moon, and even took a seat in the side aisle to just sit and take it all in for a moment.
After leaving the cathedral, we made our way up to the castle, and we found that some of the windows there also had very good views of the cathedral, such as this:
The castle itself will need its own blog post, I think, so I won’t write more about that today. But I can definitely recommend a trip to Rochester if you’re in the area, to see the cathedral and the castle as we did today, as well as take a walk down the high street where you will find pubs, cafes, vintage shops and other kinds of shops and eateries. There’s also a visitors information centre, where you can find out more about other places of interest in Rochester and the surrounding region.
We were very pleased with our day out today and loved the experience of seeing the Moon in the cathedral. Penguin was exhausted when we got home and went straight to bed to get some rest! Afterwards, he searched out another YouTube video with the ‘Hey Diddle Diddle’ song about the cow who jumped over the Moon in it, this time a music clip from Teletubbies. I love how he likes to reference things he sees or learns about, to things he knows previously from favourite tv shows.
Now, if you too wish to experience The Museum of the Moon at Rochester Cathedral, you need to hurry up and visit by Wednesday 4 March at the latest. Daytime visits are free of charge, but there are also evening times available on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, for which you will need to by tickets at the door (only £2 per adult, £1 per child). This Monday, the evening session includes a musical performance, and if we lived closer I’d been tempted to revisit then. All info about opening times etc can be found HERE (link opens in new window).
Have you been to see the Museum of the Moon at any other venue? Have you visited Rochester Cathedral, and/or the castle? Please feel free to comment below, to share about your own experiences or to give feedback or ask us questions. We appreciate hearing from you!
Until next time, take care x
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This looks amazing, how fun to visit the moon. My son is a fab of Hey Diddle Diddle too.
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Gotta love a song about a cow jumping over the moon, right? It’s too funny not to like 🙂 xx
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Oh wow this looks amazing! Love the book info too #kcacols
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Thank you Sarah! We were definitely amazed! The book came to us as a lucky bargain, well for free actually, as a school library was clearing out ‘old’ books and giving them away! We’ve had it for a few years now and it’s been really useful to us x
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This looks like a fantastic place to visit and educate #kcacols@_karendennis
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Popping back#kidsandkreativity
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Thank you Karen! We really enjoyed it, and have continued with some moon-themed activities since then, too x
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I love the idea of museum of the moon and the catherdal looks like a wonderful place to host it. I locve all the turretts on the castle #CountryKids
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Thank you Fiona, the cathedral really did frame the moon beautifully! And we always love a good old castle x
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That giant moon is at both the Powerhouse in Sydney and the Science Museum in Wollongong – I kept bumping into it in the Sept hols last year! #GlobalBlogging
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Fantastic! I thought it was a really cool experience, having the moon down here on Earth with us 🙂 x
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Lovely post! I did not know that this even existed but would love to take a look. Just a shame that every day out in the UK ends up being spent ducking for shelter!
#KCACOLS
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Thank you Steve! Yes, we’ve had our fair share (and more) of rain and storms this past month, haven’t we? Though for most of the year, I feel we have better weather here in south east England than we used to have in Sweden. And shorter, lighter winters for sure, for which I’m eternally grateful! x
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I had never heard about it – looks and sounds amazing!
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What lovely photos you’ve shared! Both the cathedral and the castle look fantastic, well worth a visit I would think.
I also really enjoyed reading about all the prep work you did for your visit.
#kcacols
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Thank you Allie! That’s really great to hear! xx
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What a great thing to be able to get up close to. I visited the castle and cathedral as a child with my Auntie, many happy memories there #countrykids
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Thank you Mary, it was quite an amazing feeling to get so close to the moon! How lovely to hear that you have happy childhood memories from these places xx
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This looks amazing. The Museum of the Moon is on my list of things I’d like to do at some point – I missed it when it was in London but maybe I’ll catch it somewhere else at a later date. How fascinating it must be to be able to see what the Moon’s surface looks like on such a large-scale model. Rochester is also on my mental list of places to visit. It does look like a beautiful place to explore and I shall look forward to hearing more about your trip to the castle later. Thank you for sharing with #CountryKids
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Thank you Louise! I hope the Museum of the Moon reappears near you in a not too distant future! Later this year it will be in Bristol and Durham, in case you’ve got friends or relatives in any of those places or would like a few days away 😉
It was really special to see it up close like that. And yes, I need to write about the castle too, thank you for the reminder! xx
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We have friends in Bristol so might have to make a trip there to see it. Popping back from #KidsandKreativity
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This looks absolutely stunning. My uncle went to see this in Gloucester a few weeks ago and my nephew saw it in Rochester so I was looking out for them in the background of your pics. Thanks for linking up with #globalblogging
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It was beautiful! Great to hear that your uncle and nephew have both had the chance to experience the Museum of the Moon too! xx
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Wow what a way to spend a day, who wouldnt want to spend the day going to the moon. Its lovely to hear you had a brilliant day. Thank you for joining us for #kcacols and we hope to see you next time.
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Thank you so much Kelly-Anne! It was an amazing experience xx
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We went to go and see the Museum of the Moon when it was in Gloucester Cathedral. Both boys were absolutely amazed by it. We really meant to catch it Rochester too but we never quite got there. #KCACOLS
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How lovely you saw it in Gloucester though! I was amazed, too! xx
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THis looks amazing, my little boy would absolutely love this! He is obsessed with all things Space. I will have to keep an eye out in the future if the tour comes near us.Thanks for linking up to #KidsandKreativity, hope to see you back next time.
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Thank you Kerry! I hope you will get the chance to see it before too long, it really was quite amazing! xx
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