London is the best city for a good dose of culture and education. We have planned a big round of museums. We went to the British Museum – lovely, but a bit overwhelmingly large, and we really didn’t get more out of it than the Egyptian section – another visit is due.
But the Victoria & Albert museum is lovely and a little less overwhelming. Everything is well-curated, and each room has at least one wow element that kept us walking through all the different rooms.
The architecture of the place is worth seeing even without the exhibits. That’s such a beautiful building.
Here are some highlights and must-sees from the museum.
Tipu Sultan’s automaton
I first heard of this automaton from this podcast, Stuff the British Stole, and I have wanted to see it in person since then. It’s as amazing as I imagined it to be—much larger in reality (almost life-size), and the colors and detailing are absolutely stunning. When its handle is turned, the victim’s dying cries can be heard from a mechanical organ hidden inside (although we can’t try this). It’s worth visiting the museum just for this alone.
The Cast Courts
The cast courts are surreal. Although these are cast reproductions, they are done incredibly well, and gasp-inducing.
The original marble Trajan’s Column stands at the centre of the Roman Forum in Rome. Apparently, the original has suffered greatly from pollution, so the cast now retains much more of the original detail.
The views of these exhibits are just as amazing when you take pictures from the first floor balcony – they are that huge!
Korean, Chinese, Persian, and Japanese rooms
All these rooms are incredible. Each room showcases famous artifacts from all these ancient civilizations.The Persian room contains this ancient carpet, which is probably the world’s oldest carpet.
There is also a good deal of fashion from various eras. The Indian medieval fashion wasn’t that interesting to me as I am already familiar with the styles and designs, but I loved the clothing from other countries.
Jewelry collection
If you are a fan of baubles, the V&A museum is the place to go. They have an incredible collection of jewelry—so dazzling that it was hard to focus on any individual piece. But one thing that stood out was Beyonce’s papillon ring.
If you are really interested in jewelry, you should absolutely buy a membership at the V&A museum to see the Cartier exhibition they currently have on display, where you will get to see pieces such as this banger of a necklace, made by Cartier for the Maharaja of Patiala.
Paintings
By now, we were feeling quite tired and casually strolling through the rest of the rooms. I popped in to have a quick look at the room housing the paintings and stopped short by this stunner.
There were also some lovely landscapes, but our eyes and brains were quite overstimulated by this time, and I stopped tracking paintings and artists. Definitely, need to make another visit soon.
On the top floor, they also have ceramics and glassware—a really interesting, proper research collection, something we need to keep aside for another day.
Overall, we spent about 4 hours in the museum, not nearly enough time. It would probably take a lifetime to look at everything properly.
