The V&A

The lowdown

The V&A is the world's leading museum of art and design, which is a grand way of saying it is full of the most beautiful things people have ever made. Five thousand years of it, free to wander, from Raphael cartoons to ballgowns to a plaster cast of an entire cathedral doorway.

It is enormous and gloriously easy to get lost in, which is rather the point. Drift through the fashion gallery, the sculpture courts and the jewellery rooms, and wash up in the John Madejski Garden, a quiet courtyard with a shallow pool that is one of the loveliest free spots in the city.

The café deserves a mention because it is the oldest museum café in the world, three opulent Victorian rooms dripping with tiles and gold. The food is not free but sitting in there is, and on a wet afternoon it is very hard to beat.