They Might Be Giants

We found a little gem outside of London this weekend, in the town of Beaconsfield. There's a "model village" called Bekonscot, which a few other families recommended as a nice day trip. Indeed it was. The idea is that it's a miniature version of a classic English village. The detail of its execution was impressive. The third picture gives some sense of the size of the display but certainly not the detail. All of the kids we saw walking down the different paths seemed entranced by it, including our boys who pretended like they were "giants" walking through a town of little people. There was a model train set (more precisely, many trains on a large complex of tracks) that ran throughout the town which delighted children with every passing. Ben in particular loved Beckonscot. By his own initiative, he went through it four times (this place was not small) and each lap the game was discovering new details not seen on the previous go-arounds, which we always did. But Zach was captivated as well and hung in there for a long while. For both, the favorite was a coal mine, which actually isn't surprising given their father's roots just north of Appalachia, the center of coal country in the US. It's in the blood. In addition, there was a real train for kids and grown ups to ride and a big playground to run around and burn some energy. For families with little kids, Bekonscot is a good call.