Victoria & Albert Museum

The Victoria & Albert Museum, on Cromwell Rd in South Kensington, has an eclectic mix of booty gathered together under its brief as a museum of decorative art and design. It sometimes feels like an enormous Victorian junk shop, with nearly four million artefacts on display. It's best to browse through the collection whimsically, checking out the Chinese ceramics, Japanese swords, cartoons by Raphael, sculpture by Rodin, the Frank Lloyd Wright study and the pair of Doc Martens.

Also on Cromwell Rd, the Natural History Museum is one of London's finest Gothic-revival buildings, but even its grand cathedral-like main entrance can seem squashed when you're confronted with hordes of screaming schoolkids. Keep away from the dinosaur exhibit while the kids are around and check out the mammal balcony, the Blue Whale exhibit and the spooky, moonlit rainforest in the ecology gallery.

Camden Markets

The huge Camden Markets could be the closest England gets to free-form chaos outside the terraces of football stadia. They stretch between Camden and Chalk Farm tube stations, incorporating Camden Lock on the Grand Union Canal, and get so crowded on weekends that you'll think you're in the Third World. The markets include the Camden Canal Market (bric-a-brac, furniture and designer clothes), Camden Market (leather goods and army surplus gear) and the Electric Market (records and 1960s clothing).

After Camden Market, the colourful Portobello Market is London's most famous (and crowded) weekend street market and is best seen on a Saturday morning before the gridlock sets in. It's full of antiques, jewellery, ethnic knick-knacks, second-hand clothes and fruit and veg stalls. Starting near the Sun in Splendour pub in Notting Hill, it wends its way northwards to just past the Westway flyover.

Hyde Park

Humongous Hyde Park used to be a royal hunting ground, was once a venue for duels, executions and horse racing, and even became a giant potato field during WWII. It is now a place of fresh air, spring colour, lazy sunbathers and boaters on the Serpentine. Features of the park include sculptures by Jacob Epstein and Henry Moore and the Serpentine Gallery, which holds temporary exhibitions of contemporary art.

Near Marble Arch, Speaker's Corner started life in 1872 as a response to serious riots. Every Sunday anyone with a soapbox - or anything else to stand on - can rant or ramble on about anything at all.

Kew Gardens

Kew Gardens, in Richmond, Surrey, is both a beautiful park and an important botanical research centre. There's a vast expanse of lawn and formal gardens and two soaring Victorian conservatories - the Palm House and the Temperate House - which are home to exotic plant life. It's one of the most visited sights on the London tourist agenda, which means that it can get very crowded, especially in the summer. And with nearby Heathrow continuously spitting out jets, there isn't much chance of total peace and quiet.

Off the Beaten Track

Hampstead Heath is one of the few places in London where you can actually forget that you're in the middle of an 800-sq-mi (1300-sq-km) city. There are woods, meadows, hills, bathing ponds and, most importantly of all, lots of space. After a brisk walk on the heath, pop into the Spaniard's Inn for a tipple or have a look at Robert Adam's beautiful Kenwood House and wander around its romantic grounds. You can lose the 20th century altogether in Church Row, Admiral's Walk and Flask Walk, which have intact Georgian cottages, terraces and houses.

Highgate Cemetery

Highgate Cemetery can't be beaten for its Victorian Gothic atmosphere and downright eeriness. Its extensive and overgrown grounds include cypress trees, Egyptian-style catacombs, enough chipped angels to please the most discerning Joy Division fan, Karl the more serious Marx brother and personalised tombs reflecting their eccentric inhabitants.

Kensal Green and Brompton cemeteries are also Victorian delights, complete with catacombs and angels.

Holland Park

Holland Park is both a residential district, full of elegant town houses, and an inner-city haven of greenery, complete with strutting peacocks and scampering bunnies, the restored remnants of a Jacobean mansion (now set aside for the world's backpackers), two exhibition galleries and formal gardens. Nearby, the Arabesque splendour of Leighton House is full of pre-Raphaelite paintings of languorous, scantily dressed Grecian ladies slipping their hands into the milky waters of public baths.

Brick Lane Market

Sunday morning means bagels for breakfast at Brick Lane market in the East End. The ground is strewn with blankets covered in everything from rusty nails to gold watches. Haggling's the key, though consonants drop off vowels faster than zeros drop off prices.

Ye olde Kensington Market is the place to go to replace your punk mohair jumper, bum bag and kilt, and why not get a haircut, tattoo, pierced upper ear and a new slogan painted on your leather jacket while you're there?

For a pot of treasure at the Victoria Line's end, head south to Brixton Market, a cosmopolitan treat made up of a rainbow coalition of reggae music, slick Muslim preachers, halal meat and fruit and vegetables. Its inventory includes wigs, homeopathic root cures, goat meat and rare records.