Ashmolean Museum

Oxford's famous Ashmolean Museum was the world's first university museum.

Located in Beaumont Street, it is currently undergoing a £49m redevelopment which, will give the museum a world-class building to match its world-class collections - including the Alfred Jewel and the works of Michelangelo, Raphael and da Vinci.

There is a large gift shop and restaurant. The museum is open from 10am to 5pm, Tuesdays to Saturdays, from noon to 5pm on Sundays, and 10am to 5pm on bank holidays. Admission to the museum is free.

Tel: 01865 278000, website: www.ashmolean.org

The Oxford University Museum of Natural History

Admission is free to this spectacular neo-Gothic museum, on Parks Road near Keble College.

The exhibits include two real dinosaur skeletons and a display of all the species of birds recorded in Britain. Other famous residents are the swifts in the tower, and the mummified head and foot of a dodo - the most complete remains of a single dodo in the world.

The permanent exhibits represent the most informative and visually interesting objects from the museum's main collections of zoological, entomological and geological specimens.

There are no restaurant or café facilities, but you could bring a picnic lunch and eat it on the museum lawn or in the nearby University Parks.

In 2005, together with the adjoining Pitt Rivers Museum, the Museum of Natural History was the winner of The Guardian family-friendly museum award.

It is open noon to 5pm, Monday to Sunday.

Tel: 01865 272950, website: www.oum.ox.ac.uk

Museum of the History of Science

This museum houses an unrivalled collection of historic scientific instruments in the world's oldest surviving purpose-built museum building, the Old Ashmolean.

Located on Broad Street, it is in the very centre of Oxford, next to the Sheldonian Theatre and directly opposite Blackwell's main bookshop.

There are no restaurant or café facilities within the museum but, being in the centre of Oxford, there are plenty of places to grab something to eat within just a couple of minutes' walk.

The Museum of the History of Science is open from noon to 5pm, Tuesday to Friday, 10am to 5pm on Saturday, and 2pm to 5pm on Sunday. Admission is free.

Tel: 01865 277280, website: www.mhs.ox.ac.uk

The Pitt Rivers Museum

This museum is one of Oxford's real treasures. It is a gloriously cluttered treasure trove of curiosities from around the world.

It was founded in 1884 when General Pitt Rivers, an anthropologist and ethnographer, as well as a military man, donated his collection of objects from all around the world.

Initially there were 18,000 objects, but today the figure is 500,000. The museum has been the subject of academic works on the politics of exhibiting other cultures - including the famous shrunken heads from South America.

Access is through the Museum of Natural History, as they are housed in the same building. It is open from noon to 4.30pm on Monday, 10am to 4.30pm, Tuesday to Sunday, and from 10am to 4.30pm on bank holidays. Admission is free.

Tel: 01865 270927, website: www.prm.ox.ac.uk