Summerlee, Museum of Scottish Industrial Life

This place is a sure fire hit with our family.  There's a working tram.

We have visited Summerlee several times now and is a good choice when the weather looks changable (your fairly typical Scottish day).  If it's sunny when we arrive, we head straight for the brilliant play park.

This photo shows the start of the play park, which is brilliant for little ones.  Further back there are things for bigger kids including a flying fox.  Don't forget to bring your bucket and spade as the floor of the start is all sand (and quite clean at that).

Following that we step aboard the Vulcan, a canal barge, which has a small exhibition inside.

There are two main areas to the museum, the exhibition hall and the miners' cottages and mine.  These are connected by a tram.

Usually this is a mid-century German tram but we have been lucky enough to ride this one before.

The miners' cottages have been furnished to show life at different time periods, from 1840s to 1980s.  See if you can spot the 1990s artifacts in the 1980s cottage!  One of the cottages is an old-fashioned sweetie shop - a word of warning if you don't want your child consuming sweeties, you will need good excuses up your sleeve.  We've always got away with it.  We haven't been down the mine yet; that's really more suitable for much older children and grown ups.

Inside the exhibition hall there is a lot to see and it's got lots of interactive stations.  There is a train table, a dance hall, a pretend grocers and much more.  Quite often there are craft activities on; we haven't tried these yet and I think there might be a small charge. Upstairs is a small, changing exhibition space, we have seen themes such as the 1980s and weddings.  I imagine they're designed as social history exhibitions suitable for primary school visits.  Again, they are curated to be interactive.  Watch out as the lift can be tricky.

Sometimes, we will go back and ride the tram again or back to the play park before ending our visit.  We spend about half an hour in the playground and half an hour at the miners' cottages, around an hour in the exhibition hall plus lunch and tram rides.  If you lived locally, you could easily pop in for a short visit but for us it's a day out.  They have lots of events on and are worth following on Twitter.  We have been known to stop at the Fort on the way back if we have things to pick up or fancy lunch there (Wagamama anyone?).

There are lots of spots to enjoy a picnic, including two indoor spaces.  The cafe is quite average for lunch.  When we have had lunch there, we have always had soup, it has always been lentil and it has always been quite salty.  Usually, we aim for a picnic lunch and stop for coffee and cake mid-morning or mid-afternoon.  Their cake is good: lots of traybakes, empire biscuits etc.

The museum is free to visit.  There is a charge for tram tickets though.  On our last visit adults were £1.60 and under 5's are free (there are other fares).  A ticket lasts all day, so you can ride as much as you want.  The staff will happily help you load your (folded) buggy onto the tram.

The toilets and baby change are clean and copious, although the nappy bin was overflowing on my last visit.

The museum is in Coatbridge and easy to access.  It has a small free car park directly in front and another small free car park next door.  Even though there is not much parking, I have always found a space easily.  It is also close to the train stations as it is close to the town centre.