Why we love the V&A

Few cities can compete with London's wealth of museums. Each has its fans but the Victoria and Albert occupies a special place in our affections. Here are a few of the reasons why

It's a destination in its own right
First, a bit of personal background: as a child I was taken to museums all over Europe. We lived in northern Germany, where my father was a teacher, and in the long, hot summer holidays we would take off in the car, heading for Spain, Italy or Portugal and towing behind us the small, four-person caravan in which the five of us would spend the next six weeks. En route my parents would interrupt the endless, unpleasant journeys (I suffered from car sickness) by parking in Paris, Rome or Lisbon and submitting us to torture by interminable museum visit.

I was interested in just two things: campsite swimming pools and the glorious uncrowded beaches that were our ultimate destination. I didn't appreciate those cultural interludes at all, and it took me a long time to get over my antipathy towards museums.

Even now I like the pill sugared a bit - and museums don't come much sweeter than the V&A, where the events and activities are almost as big a lure as the collections and exhibitions. The museum's Friday Lates sessions, incorporating talks, workshops and DJ sets, are so popular they often sell out. But the jewel in the crown of the V&A's events calender is its cool take on the village fête, now ten years old, which takes place on Friday July 24 and Saturday July 25 2009 in the John Madejski Garden around the shallow, elliptical pool that so endears the museum to its youngest visitors. In place of the usual bottle stall (traditionally the last resting place of dodgy liqueurs acquired on the back streets of holiday islands) and the bring-and-buy tables staffed by escapees from Royston Vaisey, the V&A's fête offers ingenious games and stalls offering desirable items, staffed by designers. To give you an idea of what to expect at the 2009 fête: bespoke jelly maker Bompas & Par will preside over a variation on the classic game of 'Operation', inviting visitors to rummage in a chest cavity filled with jelly in search of organs which can be exchanged for prizes. Catch a model fish in a paddling pool and you'll be rewarded with Tatty Devine jewellery.

First impressions count
The Dale Chihuly chandelier that hangs over the information desk is the V&A's equivalent of the Natural History Museum's dinosaur. Vast and stunning, it announces eloquently that the museum you are about to enter is not only a glorious repository of design history, it's an institution that is very much concerned with contemporary design, too.

The museum doesn't rest on its laurels
The V&A's ongoing FuturePlan means that there's a steady stream of revamped and new galleries to keep you going back. This year's new openings have included the Theatre and Performance Galleries, far more enjoyable here than in their more central but rather claustrophobic old premises in Covent Garden. Along with the posters, costumes (including some to try on) and props are filmed clips of iconic productions and interviews with luminaries such as playwright Michael Frayn and director Peter Hall. The life-size rhino costume from Dominic Cooke's production of 'Rhinoceros' for the Royal Court stands guard at the entrance to the galleries.

On the horizon for autumn 2009 is the first phase of the redisplay of the ceramics collection (opening September 18) and extensive new Medieval and Renaissance galleries (due to open in November).

Its temporary exhibitions are consistently good
And not just the paid-for blockbusters either; the smaller, free shows are often excellent. Summer 2009's 'Telling Tales', curated by Gareth Williams, explores the disputed no man's land between art and design through a gloriously theatrical display of furniture, ceramics, and other products created in limited editions by designers, mostly from the Netherlands, who make objects with a story to tell.

The exhibition is divided into three distinct parts: the first evokes the oral tradition and the scary/seductive world of fairy tales; the next is a celebration of worldliness that extravagantly mirrors and parodies the rise of the novel in the eighteenth century. The final section refers to twentieth-century anxieties through more disturbing pieces such as huggable mushroom cloud cushions by Dunne & Raby and Michael Anastassiades, and Niels van Eijk and Miriam van der Lubbe's sinister 'Moulded Mole' slippers.

It's got a brilliant shop
So many museums miss a trick when it comes to their retail section; it's almost as though they're a bit embarrassed to make a buck from their treasures. But the V&A is absolutely on the button, with reproductions of items from its collections alongside contemporary homewares, jewellery, accessories, stationery and kids' toys. The bookshop has recently moved round the corner to its own dedicated space, now generously supplied with design-classic chairs in which to sit back and flick through potential purchases.

It's full of things
Perhaps the most appealing thing about the V&A is that it's full of stuff , not necessarily a given in an era when museums are increasing about abstract ideas and virtual displays. Which is not to say that it lacks cutting-edge technology, just that it hasn't thrown the baby out with the bathwater and consigned its collections to warehouse obscurity. Visit the revamped jewellery galleries, for example, and alongside the abundant glittering exhibits you'll find numerous monitors at which you can select gems to magnify and manipulate. That's precisely what an entire class of fifteen year olds were up to when I visited recently.

I'm particularly attached to the glass gallery, where the displays remind me of the overcrowded kitchen cabinets of someone who knows they ought to have a really good sort out but can't quite bring themselves to part with anything. Another favourite - and a winner with kids - is Tippoo's Tiger, a life-size mechanical model of a man being devoured by a tiger (if your own children are very small or particularly fearful you may prefer to say that the tiger's just giving his master a nice lick).

The restaurant is wonderfully atmospheric
It's the perfect place to have a cup of tea and a piece of (admittedly overpriced) cake that you know you don't really need, while admiring the cavernous, opulently tiled interior and the vast spherical chandeliers which, oddly, afford only the dimmest light. For the best view, I prefer to use the garden entrance, if I can, though often I can't because, although navigation of the museum has been greatly improved in recent years, it's still remarkably easy to discover that you haven't the foggiest where you are. And that is part of the V&A's charm, because every time I visit I come across something new to enjoy about the building and its collections.

V&A, Cromwell Rd, SW7 2RL (7942 2000/www.vam.ac.uk). South Kensington tube. 10am-5.45pm; till 10pm Fri. Adm free.