5. VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM
South Kensington’s V&A is one of the world’s largest art and design
museums, and it's arguably London’s most glamorous. (Just the building
itself is well worth the visit: a glorious red-brick palace filled with sculptural
details, extravagant tiling, and frescos.) The collection is helpfully broken
down into topics—fashion, theatre, furniture, architecture—and all are
comprehensive, usually spanning several hundred (if not thousand) years.
Don’t expect to tackle more than one or two galleries per visit, and do check
out the seasonal exhibition.