10 Best Sights in London, England

Designed by Sir John Soane, Dulwich (pronounced dull-ich) Picture Gallery was the world's first purpose-built art museum when it opened in 1811 (the recent extension was designed by Rick Mather). The permanent collection of more than 600 paintings includes landmark works by old masters such as Rembrandt, van Dyck, Rubens, Canaletto, and Gainsborough. The museum also hosts three or so major temporary exhibitions each year devoted to more-contemporary artists like Helen Frankenthaler. Check the website for its schedule of family activities; there's a 3-acre garden with a lovely café here, too.

While you're in the area, take a short wander and you'll find a handful of charming clothing and crafts stores and the well-manicured Dulwich Park, which has lakeside walks and a fine display of rhododendrons in late May. Development in Dulwich Village is tightly controlled, so it feels a bit like a time capsule, with old-fashioned street signs and handsome 18th-century houses on the main street.

The former home of leading Victorian artist Frederic (Lord) Leighton now dazzles more than ever. Leighton spent 30 years (and a lot of money) transforming the Holland Park residence where he lived and worked into an opulent "private palace of art." His travels through the Middle East inform the sumptuousness of the interior: think peacock-blue tiled walls, beautiful mosaic wall panels, marble pillars, and gilded ceilings. The centerpiece is the Arab Hall, with its intricate ceramic murals under a stunning gold leaf dome. Leighton's fascinating Winter Studio is now fully restored, as is the original entrance hall to the house. Look out for an unassuming door to the right of the reception desk: it's the separate entrance for Leighton's models, designed to keep them away from prying Victorian eyes. There's also a delightful garden-side café.

Burlington House was built in 1664, with later Palladian additions for the 3rd Earl of Burlington in 1720. The piazza in front dates from 1873, when the Renaissance-style buildings around the courtyard were designed by Banks and Barry to house a gaggle of noble scientific societies, including the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Royal Astronomical Society.

The house itself is home to the Royal Academy of Arts and an ambitious redevelopment for the academy's 250th anniversary in 2018 has meant that even more of its 46,000 treasures are now on display. The statue of the academy's first president, Sir Joshua Reynolds, palette in hand, stands prominently in the piazza. Free tours show off part of the collection and the excellent temporary exhibitions. Every June through August, the RA puts on its Summer Exhibition, a huge and eclectic collection of art by living Royal Academicians and many other contemporary artists.

This spectacular renovation of a mid-20th-century power station is one of the most-visited museums of modern art in the world. Its great permanent collection, which starts in 1900 and ranges from modernist masters like Matisse to the most cutting-edge contemporary artists, is arranged in eight areas by theme (for example, "Media Networks," about artists' responses to mass media) rather than by chronology. Its blockbuster temporary exhibitions have showcased the work of individual artists like Gauguin, Rauschenberg, Cezanne, Picasso, and O'Keefe, among others. Other major temporary exhibitions have a conceptual focus, like works created in response to the American Black Power movement or by Soviet and Russian artists between the Revolution and the death of Stalin.

The vast Turbine Hall is a dramatic entrance point used to showcase big audacious installations that tend to generate a lot of publicity. Past highlights include Olafur Eliasson's massive glowing sun, Ai Weiwei's porcelain "sunflower seeds," and Carsten Holler's huge metal slides.

On the ground floor of a 10-story addition, you'll find The Tanks, galleries devoted to various types of new art, including moving image, performance, soundscapes, and interactive works, while at the top is a roof terrace offering spectacular views of the London skyline. In between are three exhibition floors offering more room for large-scale installations, for art from outside Europe and North America, and for digital and interactive projects. The Start Display (Level 2) provides an introduction to the collection, highlighting art from various countries, cultures, and periods, all linked by color.

Not to be missed in the original building are displays devoted to Gerhard Richter (both on Level 2), Antony Gormley, Jenny Holzer, the Guerrilla Girls, and video pioneer Nam June Paik (Level 4); and a room-size installation by Yinka Shonibare (Level 2).

Head to the restaurant on Level 9, the café on Level 1, or the Espresso Bar on Level 3 for stunning vistas of the Thames. The view of St. Paul's from the Espresso Bar's balcony is one of the best in London. Near the café you'll find the Drawing Bar, which lets you create work on one of several digital sketch pads and then project your result on the gallery wall.

You can join free 45-minute guided tours starting at noon, 1, and 2. If you plan to visit Tate Britain, take advantage of the Tate Boat, which takes visitors back and forth between the two Tates every 20 to 30 minutes.

One of London's most beloved art collections, The Courtauld is to your right as you pass through the archway into the grounds of the beautifully restored, grand 18th-century neoclassical Somerset House. Founded in 1931 by the textile magnate Samuel Courtauld to house his remarkable private collection, this is one of the world's finest impressionist and postimpressionist galleries, with artists ranging from Bonnard to van Gogh. A déjà-vu moment with Cézanne, Degas, Seurat, Monet, and more awaits on every wall (Manet's Bar at the Folies-Bergère and van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear are two of the stars). Botticelli, Bruegel, Tiepolo, and Rubens are also represented, thanks to the bequest of Count Antoine Seilern's Princes Gate collection. German Renaissance paintings include the sublime Adam and Eve by Lucas Cranach the Elder. The second floor has a more provocative, experimental feel, with masterpieces such as Modigliani's famous Female Nude. Look out for a full program of additional blockbuster one-off exhibitions, and don't miss the little café downstairs, a perfect place for a post-gallery spot of tea.

Next to the National Maritime Museum, you'll find the Queen's House, home to a changing selection of the extraordinary Royal Museums Greenwich art collection. The largest collection of maritime art in the world, it includes artwork by William Hogarth, Canaletto, and Joshua Reynolds. These names alone would make the Queen's House worthy of your time, but there's so much more here to enjoy, from the glorious architecture of Inigo Jones to the sensitive and thought-provoking contemporary artist responses commissioned to contextualize the collection's works.

With its Great Gallery stunningly refurbished, there's even more reason to visit this exquisite gem of an art gallery—although housing one of the world's finest assemblies of old master paintings is reason enough. This glorious collection and the 18th-century mansion in which it's located were bequeathed to the nation by Lady Julie-Amélie-Charlotte Wallace, the widow of Sir Richard Wallace (1818–90). Wallace's father, the 4th Marquess of Hertford, took a house in Paris after the French Revolution and set about snapping up paintings by what were then dangerously unpopular artists.

Frans Hals's The Laughing Cavalier is probably the most famous painting here, or perhaps Jean-Honoré Fragonard's The Swing. The full list of painters in the collection reads like a "who's who" of classical European art—from Rubens, Rembrandt, and van Dyck to Canaletto, Titian, and Velázquez. English works include paintings by Gainsborough and Turner. There are also fine collections of furniture, porcelain, Renaissance gold, and majolica (15th- and 16th-century Italian tin-glazed pottery). With craft activities, hands-on sessions, and the "Little Draw" drawing workshops, as well as the chance to try on a suit of armor in the "Arms and Armour" collection, there's plenty to keep kids occupied, too.

The conditions of the bequest mean that no part of the collection can leave the building; this is the only place in the world you'll ever be able to see these works.

Known to all as the V&A, this huge museum with more than two million items on display in 145 galleries is devoted to the applied arts of all disciplines, all periods, and all nationalities. First opened as the South Kensington Museum in 1857, it was renamed in 1899 in honor of Queen Victoria's late husband and has since grown to become one of the country's best-loved cultural institutions, with high-profile temporary exhibitions alongside an impressive permanent collection. Many collections at the V&A are presented not by period but by category—textiles, sculpture, jewelry, and so on. It's a tricky building to navigate, so use the free map.

Nowhere is the benefit of the categorization more apparent than in the Fashion Gallery (Room 40), where formal 18th-century court dresses are displayed alongside the haute couture styles of contemporary designers. The museum has become known for high-profile temporary exhibitions devoted to fashion icons such as Alexander McQueen, Balenciaga, and Christian Dior, and to explorations of pop legends including David Bowie and Pink Floyd.

The British Galleries (Rooms 52–58 and 118–125) survey British art and design from 1500 to 1900 and are full of rare and beautiful artifacts, such as the Tudor Great Bed of Ware (immortalized in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night) and silks woven by Huguenot refugees in 18th-century Spitalfields. Among the series of actual rooms that have been painstakingly reconstructed piece by piece are the glamorous rococo Norfolk House Music Room and the serenely elegant Henrietta St. Drawing Room, originally designed in 1722.

The Asian Galleries (Rooms 44–47) are full of treasures, but among the most striking items on display is a remarkable collection of ornate samurai armor in the Japanese Gallery (Room 44). Works from China, Korea, and the Islamic Middle East have their own displays. Also of note is a gallery thematically grouped around Buddhist sculptures from different regions and periods. The Europe Gallery (Rooms 1–7) brings together more than 1,100 objects created between 1600 and 1815, while the Medieval and Renaissance galleries, which document European art and culture from 300 to 1600, have the largest collection of works from the period outside of Italy.

An entrance off Exhibition Road offers access through Britain's first porcelain-tiled public courtyard, which also serves as a venue for contemporary installations and a glass-fronted café. A photography center houses books, photo equipment, and more than 270,000 prints formerly held by the Royal Photographic Society, joining the more than 500,000 photos already in the museum's collection. A room in the center has been named the Elton John and David Furnish Gallery after the couple donated some 7,000 photographs by 20th-century masters. A free one-hour introductory tour of the museum's highlights twice daily on Thursdays through Sundays helps you take it all in. Whatever time you visit, the spectacular sculpture hall will be filled with artists, both amateur and professional, sketching the myriad artworks on display there. Don't be shy; bring a pad and join in.

Located in the former Commonwealth Institute, this museum was the first in the United Kingdom to place everyday contemporary objects in a social and cultural context and to consider their role in the history of design. A free, permanent exhibition displays some 1,000 examples of 20th- and 21st-century design—from furniture, fashion, and domestic products to digital technology, architecture, and engineering. The temporary exhibitions may be focused on leading individual designers, such as Charles and Ray Eames, Isamu Noguchi, Terence Conran, or David Adjaye, on themes such as the global influence of Californian design, or on the role of design in related art forms, like an exhibition devoted to the work of film director Stanley Kubrick. There's also a design library and archive, two shops, a café, and a restaurant.

Not everyone thinks graffiti can be a bonus to the urban landscape, but those who do should head for this leading gallery of contemporary street art. The big name here is Banksy, but there are works for sale by several other artists in the same vein, such as TRUST.iCON and Code FC, who are more concerned with social commentary than tagging. Private two-hour master classes are available during the week upon request, with less-expensive public workshops running Saturdays and Sundays at 1:15 pm (be sure to book at least a week in advance).