Excellently presented (National Portrait Gallery (London))

Member Name: dcmbarton

Product:	National Portrait Gallery (London)
Date:	11/01/09 (19 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well laid out and helpful staff

Disadvantages: Not signed very well from outside

We visited the National Portrait Gallery between Christmas and New Year, and found it to be a very enjoyable experience.

The staff were friendly, knowledgeable, helpful, well presented and courteous. A dissapointingly rare thing these days. The building was well signed inside, yet seemed rather hidden away. A lot of official-looking people in Trafalgar Square kept directing us to the National Gallery which is not the same thing. It could certainly benefit from improved signs outside.

The building is well laid out inside were clearly marked sections. It was clean and well presented. I found some of the areas (particularly the 1960+ area) to be rather crampt and there wasn't really space to stand back and look at the paintings from a distance. Despite this, many of the other rooms were spacious and didn't seem in any way crowded.

There is a small shop - small being the operative word. In my opinion it is far too small for the volume of visitors coming through. I saw quite a lot of people walk on by because you simply couldn't get in the door.

We didn't spent long there as there was only two particular paintings we wanted to see. The free admission is a great advantage for people like us. It is big though, and you either need to have a good idea of what you want to look at, or a lot of time to simply wander and browse.

Summary: Well worth a visit, but do your research before you go