Who doesn’t love visiting a museum? I know it’s of my favourite rainy Saturday morning activities and now the season has started I’ll be doing another round of museums and seeing which one is truly worth your visit. I want to make it as fact based as possible, so I’ve opted for a traditional grading system.
I’m looking at the 4 things that are most important to me: location, exhibits, value for money and the layout. So, how easy is it to find your way around? Do you need a map? Does how they’ve arranged all the exhibits make sense or leave you more confused than when you entered? Is it far from the city centre and can I combine it with a visit to something else? To top it all off, there are extra points to be had for places with a wow factor.
Kicking off with the Museum that’s been the home to British art since 1897, it’s Tate Modern’s overlooked and dusty uncle: Tate Britain.
Location – 15/20
Tate Britain is located in Pimlico, not really a must-see London neighbourhood. Though I did see a lot of people with carry-on suitcases so it might be an Airbnb nirvana? It’s about a 10 minute walk from the Pimlico Station or Vauxhall Station in Zone 1.
Pretty quick to get to, but since it’s a bit out of the center and there isn’t really another activity you can combine it with I’d say it loses some points.
Exhibits – 10/20
Holds a permanent British collection, offering an overview of paintings, photographs and sculptures by the island’s finest. It has all the big names but not the world-famous works you might know for them – it’s like the the B-sides of an album.
Value For Money – 20/20
Like most museums in London, anyone can browse the permanent collection for free while temporary exhibitions start at £13, which is very fair for the capital .
Layout – 10/ 20
To make sure you don’t miss anything, do grab a map as it’s easier to navigate. The placement of the paintings is hit and miss: in some rooms there would be 20 crowding a wall, while others would have a lot less, making it feel inconsistent. 
Wow Factor – 10/20
Points for the gorgeous neo-classical portico entrance, the dome ceiling and for that forgotten corner that’s left from how the building used to be in the 90s.
Total: 65/100 points. It’s a reasonable enough art museum, where you’ll have lots to enjoy, but it falls down for its lack of big-name pieces and it doesn’t have the grand magic of its newer, hipper brother on the South Bank – Tate Modern.
Some places only offered guided tours – despite the app not mentioning it, but with so many things on offer it was easy to simply walk to the next place. Having to go to court isn’t most people’s idea of a fun day out, let alone the Supreme Court, but when it’s housed in an amazing building I’m happy to volunteer as tribute. The UK Supreme Court comes with a dream library (though the books are a bit too dry for my liking) including ladders, a tower room and Harry Potter like stairs. If that wasn’t enough, you could also don various judge robes and wigs for your own legal catwalk experience – take that London Fashion Week!
If you look up boujee in the picture dictionary you will see a photo of Banqueting House with its mysterious cellar like space to its grand hall. It’s so extra the powder rooms come with a sit down and re-apply your make-up corner – sadly I wasn’t invited to the next ball/feast/extravaganza…
Look at this view! How would you ever want to leave?
Gori seemed to be a place where everyone stopped. It’s home to the Stalin Museum which (depending on your ethical views) you can visit. It turned out it was more a place housing a random collection of stuff Stalin owned without providing real background info, with everything written in Georgian or Cyrillic. You can always book a tour, but in the end it wasn’t worth the money.
If you’re feeling peckish on your travels, I’d recommend stocking up on churchkhela. You’ll see these everywhere, and no, they are not sausages like I initially thought. They are a snack with walnuts and grape juice, also known as Georgian Snickers, and they are actually the most delicious natural sweet I’ve shoved in my mouth.
As we travelled around chowing on our churckhela, we kept spotting the Jvari monastery on the hill calling us to come visit, but more on that later.
Before we trekked up the hill to meet Jvari, we sat down for a quick lunch and our first experience of Georgian lemonade – my advice is skip the vanilla-flavoured version and stick to the original lemon variety, or if you’re feeling daring go for the tarragon infusion!
One of my favourite Bosnian dishes is brown bean soup and I am very picky about it, so you can imagine I was sceptical about trying the Georgian version! Don’t tell my mum … but I LOVED it. The Georgian spices work well and their cornbread was delightfully crunchy. If you see lobio soup on the menu you must try it!
And then it was time for Jvari. And honestly? Jvari is a shameless tease that gets you all excited while driving around it. But once you get on top, it’s not as big or impressive as you might have guessed – Uplistsikhe is a way better experience.
