Golden Hinde

St Mary Overie Dock, Cathedral Street, SE1 (020 7403 0123)

Monument tube or London Bridge tube/rail. Open 10am-6pm daily (phone to check). Admission £2.50; £1.75 4s-13s; £2.10 OAPs, students, disabled, ES40s; £6.50 family. Credit MC, V.
Website: http://www.goldenhinde.co.uk

This full-size reconstruction of Sir Francis Drake’s sixteenth-century flagship looks impressively pristine considering the two decades it has spent circumnavigating the world as a seaborne museum. It’s hard to believe that the dinky ship travelled over 100,000 miles, many more than the original. Years of research went into producing this authentic reproduction, now in a dry dock, and it shows: the interior has been recreated in minute detail and the diminutive proportions of the gun deck and hold feel painfully real. The atmosphere on board is fleshed out by åcrew’ in Elizabethan costume. A big hit with kids. Tickets are sold from the card shop next to the ship.