From the kids' point of view, the highlight of the ROM is the Dinosaurs Gallery on Level 2. Don't take the elevator to get there or you'll miss the amazing Stair of Wonders built in Michael Lee-Chin Crystal. It includes a few collections encased like gems in a cave. The first room in the Dinosaurs section presents the largest fossils I have ever seen and the longest skeleton of the collection: the Barosaurus. In the next room, across the corridor, huge marine specimens hung over our heads, Tyranosaurus Rex in all its splendour and the Tryceratops skull were all great, but what really enthralled us was the Gallery of the Age of Mammals. It displays contemporary skeletons next to those of their prehistoric ancestors, and a mammoth from... Welland, Ontario! The best of the rest (for kids) includes the Bat Cave and adjacent hands-on Biodiversity Gallery, along with the Discovery Gallery (accessible through a nearby corridor). Don't miss the amazing Earth's Treasures, also located on Level 2 by the golden Rotunda. The minerals come in all shapes and colours. The displays are truly clever and beautiful. Facing the $1,000,000 giant gold coin (yep, it's real), they've attached 2.9 tonnes of hard rock ores on a wall, next to the 1.3 once tiny bit of gold you can extract from it.
There's much more (last time we visited, we spent six hours and it wasn't enough to see it all): the mummy (north-east corner of Level 3), the large rhino in Biodiversity, the armours (next to the hockey players (Samuel European Galleries Level 3). Tourists wanting to capture what's most exotic about Canada will absolutely want to visit the gorgeous displays of Canada: First People (Level 1, north of the Rotunda), and see the 80-foot tall totem from the 19th century.
For our photo gallery of the current exhibition Pompeii, CLICK HERE
