The Soane Museum: Genius, Madness, and a Sarcophagus

13 Lincoln's Inn Fields. Free. Three townhouses packed to the rafters by the architect of the Bank of England who could not stop collecting. Roman urns beside Canaletto paintings beside architectural models, all lit by skylights and mirrors he designed to multiply space. The result is a cabinet of wonders from a mind that was brilliant, obsessive, and entirely ungovernable.

The Picture Room — twelve feet square, walls on hinges revealing layer after layer of paintings including both of Hogarth's great series. A guide opens the panels one by one, art behind art behind art, then the final panel opens into a tiny courtyard. Space appearing where none should exist. Architecture as magic trick. The Monk's Parlour downstairs is his joke — a fake medieval ruin inside his own house, complete with a fictional monk's tombstone.

The Egyptian sarcophagus of Seti I in the crypt — translucent alabaster, 3,000-year-old chisel marks. When Soane got it in 1824 (the British Museum couldn't afford it), he threw a three-day party for 890 people. In the basement corridors, convex mirrors at ceiling junctions reflect rooms behind you in miniature. His surveillance system built for wonder, not security. Wednesday through Sunday, go early, go alone.