Victoria and Albert Museum

The Victoria and Albert Museum, founded in 1852 from the profits and ideals of the Great Exhibition, set out to teach a nation good design and ended up assembling one of the largest art and design collections on Earth - millions of objects spanning five millennia of human making. The range is the point: medieval reliquaries, Renaissance sculpture, Ottoman ceramics, the Ardabil carpet under its timed light, couture fashion, theatre and photography, silver, ironwork and stained glass, all housed in a Victorian palace of a building whose grand cafe rooms - by Morris, Gamble and Poynter - were the world's first museum restaurant. Two rooms alone justify the trip: the Cast Courts, where full-size Victorian plaster casts include Trajan's Column sliced in two and Michelangelo's David, and the gallery of the Raphael Cartoons, the monumental 1515-16 tapestry designs lent from the Royal Collection. Entry to it all is free.

What you actually see

• The Cast Courts - Trajan's Column in halves and David in Victorian plaster.
• The Raphael Cartoons - monumental Renaissance tapestry designs.
• The fashion galleries - centuries of dress to current couture.
• The Morris rooms - the ornate original refreshment rooms, still serving.

When to go

Year-round; weekday mornings are calmest and Friday late openings add evening hours. Blockbuster exhibitions sell out - book those ahead.

Honest expectations

The V&A is unfinishable - seven miles of galleries reward choosing two or three sections over attempting a sweep. Wayfinding is famously confusing; take the map. The free collection is world-class, but the headline exhibitions are ticketed and not cheap.

Nearby

The Natural History and Science Museums stand on the same South Kensington block; Hyde Park is a short walk.