County Hall

Lonely Planet review

Begun in 1909, County Hall took more than five decades to complete. Today it contains an art museum and gallery, the vast London aquarium and two hotels.

It seems that no major European city is complete these days without a museum devoted to the work of Salvador Dalí, and Dalí Universe is the world's largest, with 500 of the prolific surrealist artist's twisted paintings, etchings, sculptures and other works on display in a series of low-lit galleries arranged according to theme: Sensuality and Femininity, Religion and Mythology, and Dreams and Fantasy. Keep an eye out for Dalí's famous melting pocket watch ( Persistence of Memory ), Mae West Lips Sofa and the backdrop he painted for Hitchcock's film Spellbound .

The London Aquarium is one of the largest in Europe and, as room after room of fish tanks go, this is a pretty good one. Fish are grouped in some 14 zones according to their geographic origin, from the Pacific to the Atlantic Oceans and from temperate waters to tropical seas. The coral-reef (zone 10) and mangrove (zone 13) displays are particularly impressive, and there's a 'touch pool' with manta rays for the kids.