Europe’s 10 best cities for art

The wonderful thing about city breaks is that you can tailor them to so many different interests. You might be into music or markets, fine dining or street food, shopping or nightlife, the chances are that, whichever city you pick, you will find something to your taste.

My own first instinct is to consider the museums and art galleries. I want to make sure I don’t miss a key painting or collection, and sometimes I will plan a whole trip around an exhibition.

This is the time of year when cultural life in European cities restarts after the summer break, and it is an ideal moment to start planning a cultural break. But where to go for art lovers like myself?

So much depends obviously on what you are into: Old Masters or impressionists; medievalists or modernists? I have racked my brains to come up with 10 suggestions to choose from – my selection of Europe’s top cultural cities where you will find outstanding museums and some of the best art in the world.

And while some – Paris, Rome, Venice, for example – might seem a little obvious, I have picked out some of the lesser-known sights that you may well have missed even if you have visited before.

The Hague

The Mauritshuis in The Hague is worth the journey for any art lover. The quality of the pictures on display is dazzling, with the standard set by paintings like Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Goldfinch by Fabritius and the last of Rembrandt’s great self-portraits.

The setting – a stunning 17th-century mansion – gives the perfect context. The whole museum is the ideal size for a two-hour visit. Add in The Hague’s Kunstmuseum, with its stellar modern art collection ranging from Degas and Monet to Van Gogh and Mondrian, and the Museum Bredius, which has more highlights from the Dutch 17th century, and you have a perfect mix for an art weekend.

Hotel Des Indes has rooms from £236 per night. Find more in our guide to the best hotels in The Hague.

Vienna

However old you are, if you still suffer from teenage angst then the seminal collection of paintings by Egon Schiele in Vienna’s Leopold Museum will be a sweet torture for your soul.

If you are a romantic, head straight to the Belvedere where Klimt’s The Kiss is the highlight of a wonderful museum.

And if you prefer the Old Masters, then prepare to spend a whole day revelling in the astonishing galleries of the Kunsthistorisches Museum – you will find some of the greatest works by Titian and Rubens, Velasquez and Vermeer, and a wonderful room full of Bruegels, including three of his five surviving paintings of the Seasons.

Hotel Beethoven has rooms from £190 per night. Find more in our guide to the best hotels in Vienna.

Antwerp

Antwerp is my cultural city curve-ball. It’s quick to get to by rail via Brussels, relatively cheap and one of Europe’s most underrated art cities.

The centrepiece is the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp or KMSKA, which has the greatest collection of paintings from the Flemish golden age in the 16th and 17th centuries. But there is lots more.

The Rubens House, which the artist bought in 1610 on his return from Rome and then converted into a Renaissance palace, is a place of pilgrimage.

And there are two fabulous art museums in former residences of the city’s greatest art collectors: the Rockox House and the Mayer van den Bergh Museum.

Hotel August has rooms from £147 per night. Find more in our guide to the best hotels in Antwerp.

Paris

Everyone knows that the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay are two of the world’s greatest treasure houses. There is a good chance you have already been to both, and perhaps also to see the Monet water lilies in the Orangerie and the Picasso Museum in the Marais.

But the French capital’s attraction for art lovers goes far deeper.

There are perhaps 20 more major collections of paintings and sculpture, many neglected by tourists. Some, like the wonderful Petit Palais, which specialises in art from the Belle Époque and the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris (outstanding works by Matisse) are free.

Also among my favourites are the Musée Marmottan Monet (Monet and Berthe Morisot), the Musée Rodin and the wonderful Musée Jacquemart André in the 8th arrondissement – the outstanding collection of a former banker, which is still housed in his private mansion. Note that the Pompidou Centre closes in September 2025, for a five-year refurbishment.

Hôtel Particulier Montmartre has rooms from £510 per night. Find more in our guide to the best holidays in Paris.

Nice

From 1900 to the 1960s, Nice, the Côte d’Azur and the villages scattered in the hills and mountains just behind were the favourite holiday resorts for some of the most celebrated artists of the time. The result is a remarkable clutch of museums focused on their lives and work.

Nice itself has one museum dedicated to Marc Chagall, and another to Henri Matisse, as well as a separate city museum of modern and contemporary art.

Antibes has a Picasso Museum filled with work from his time here in 1946, while the nearby Pablo Picasso National Museum in Vallauris displays an unrivalled collection of his ceramics. For a seaside city break peppered with great art, look no further.

Hôtel La Pérouse has rooms from £643 per night. Find more in our guide to the best hotels in Nice.

Madrid

Roll over Paris and London, Florence and Rome. Madrid is surely Europe’s greatest art capital.

The former Habsburg collections in the Prado include the most important works by Goya and Velázquez, as well as brilliant paintings by Titian and Rubens and other famous treasures, such as Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights. And it is now supplemented by the fabulous new Royal Collections Gallery.

The Thyssen Bornemisza museum is unrivalled as a chronological account of Western Art from the Middle Ages onwards, while the Reina Sofia – home to Picasso’s Guernica – has a fabulous 20th-century collection.

Lesser-known museums include the Bellas Artes (which has some of my favourite Goyas) and the former home of Joaquim Sorolla, the great Spanish “Impressionist”, which contains many of his paintings.

Gran Hotel Inglés has rooms from £371 per night. Find more in our guide to the best hotels in Madrid.

Venice

One of the great pleasures of visiting Venice is getting away from the heaving crowds of day-trippers who descend on St Mark’s Square and the Doge’s Palace to explore the quieter sights and museums in peace.

True, the Guggenheim (20th-century art) can get busy and sometimes the Accademia museum, which has some of the city’s greatest treasures, has queues at the door.

But even though the Correr Museum is in St Mark’s Square and has a fabulous collection, it is rarely busy.

Other treats include the Ca Rezzonico (18th-century art), the wonderfully eclectic galleries of the Querini Stampalia foundation, the Tintorettos in the Scuola Grande di San Rocco and the charming Carpaccios in the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni.

Al Ponte Antico has rooms from £398 per night. Find more in our guide to the best hotels in Venice.

Rome

Art lovers in Rome have an advantage, in some respects at least.

Such is the focus on the ancient sites – such as the Forum and the Colosseum – and on the unique appeal of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling, that its other great art treasures, even those in the Vatican museum’s picture gallery, are mostly ignored by tourists.

True, the greatest collection of all, in the Villa Borghese, gets busy enough to need a system of timed tickets.

But the other great museums are often deserted. I’m thinking of the Barbarini Palace (key works by Caravaggio and Raphael), the Galleria Doria Pamphilj (more Caravaggio and Raphael, plus a great Velázquez) and the Galleria Spada, which has a top collection of Baroque art.

Martis Palace Hotel Rome has rooms from £410 per night. Find more in our guide to the best hotels in Rome.

Florence

There is no doubt about the status of Florence as an art destination, and the sheer numbers crowding to see Botticelli’s Venus, and other seminal works from the Florentine Renaissance, means that you have to book your timed tickets to see the Uffizi Gallery several days in advance.

Likewise, Michelangelo’s David in the Accademia Museum. But there are plenty of great museums where the pressure of numbers is much lower.

Most notably, the huge galleries of the Medici’s Palazzo Pitti on the other side of the river, which has outstanding works by Raphael, Titian and Artemisia Gentileschi.

Then there is the great Bargello sculpture museum, Fra Angelico’s frescos in the San Marco monastery, the regular exhibitions at the Strozzi Palace… the list goes on and on.

Palazzo Guadagni has rooms from £394 per night. Find more in our guide to the best hotels in Florence.

Amsterdam

Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum showcases the greatest works of art from 17th-century Holland.

Culminating in a room devoted to Rembrandt’s Night Watch, the “Galleries of Honour” are also home to some of Vermeer’s finest paintings (including the Milkmaid and the Little Street), Frans Hals’ Merry Drinker and many others.

Meanwhile, just across the park is the greatest museum devoted to a single artist in the world: the Van Gogh Museum, which holds by far the most important collection of his work.

Not surprisingly, tickets sell out several days in advance. And if none of that is to your taste, there is a more modern collection from the 20th and 21st centuries in the Stedelijk Museum, a few paces away.

Breitner House has rooms from £623 per night. Find more in our guide to the best hotels in Amsterdam.

About our expert

Nick Trend’s new book, Italy: In the Footsteps of the Great Artists is published by Thames & Hudson on September 25, 2025.

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