Enjoying Life: The Best Wonders To Visit On Holiday

The Louvre

FOR THE FIRST-TIMER – Hit the Denon wing, but don’t stay too long—the crowds are insane. Catch the iconic Winged Victory of Samothrace sculpture and Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People, then head to the ornately gilded Apollo Gallery: it encapsulates 17th-century excess and was a model for Versailles’ Hall of Mirrors. Come up for air in the Sully Wing: the Venus de Milo is one of the rare sculptures that lives up to the photos.

RETURN TRIP TO-DOS – The Richelieu wing. Napoleon Ill’s apartments have been painstakingly reconstructed in all their over-the-top, gilt-and-red-velvet glory. An in-person visit is the only way to fully appreciate the Second Empire opulence.

MOST OVERRATED – The Mona Lisa. Too packed. Plus, it’s tiny, and your photo will have a hundred iPhones in the foreground. But if you insist on seeing it, don’t bypass Marriage at Cana in the same room—the museum’s largest painting.

Reasons to Love Basel

Mention this Swiss city and many people immediately think of Art Basel, the king of contemporary art fairs. But with more than 40 design and art museums—about half of which rival the best galleries in Europe—this town of just 1,75,000 deserves its reputation as a year-round cultural hub. Currently winning worldwide acclaim is the Kunstmuseum Basel, the world’s first municipal art collection, which has been renovated and last month unveiled a third building.

The new extension opened with ‘Sculpture on the Move, 1946-2016’ a much-anticipated group exhibition that includes works by Alexander Calder, Joseph Beuys, and Matthew Barney, among others (through September 18). Later this year, the museum will run a major exhibition of Jackson Pollock’s figurative work. “It’s pretty incredible to have such a small population so steeped in art,” says Kunsthalle director Elena Filipovic.

The Uffizi Galleri – Florence

FOR THE FIRST-TIMER – There’s no way you’ll get through the whole gallery in one day. But stick to the second floor and you can watch the Renaissance unfold in a couple of hours— it’s crowded, but the collection is unbeatable. Look for paintings of the Madonna and Child by Giotto, Botticelli’s Venus, and Michelangelo’s Doni Tondo, the artist’s only painting in Florence. End in the new first-floor Titian hall with Venus of Urbino, perhaps his greatest—and most controversial—piece.

RETURN TRIP TO-DOS – Check out this summer’s show of rarely seen 15th-century painted wooden sculptures (until August 28). And always worth a look is the Cabinet of Miniatures, an elaborately decorated room lined with some 400 tiny portraits.

MOST OVERLOOKED – The Vasari Corridor, the Medicis’ passageway that houses amazing self-portraits by the masters, is not open to the public unless you book a private tour at uffizi.org.

The Rijksmuseum – Amsterdam

FOR THE FIRST-TIMER – Spend an hour or two with the Dutch masters (Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals) in the department of 17th-century Golden Age art. Then see the model ships and weaponry—incredible craftsmanship, and a nice change after all the paintings. End in the library: three floors, spiral staircase, might make book lovers cry.

RETURN TRIP TO-DOS – See the Asian Pavilion for works amassed by 17th-century Dutch traders—for centuries the only Europeans doing business with isolationist Japan. The collection is one of the best assemblages of Asian artwork in the West.

MOST OVERLOOKED – Tucked away in the medieval art halls are a series of tiny 16th-century prayer nuts, rosary beads prized by wealthy congregants. Their size makes them easy to miss, but the intricately carved patterns and microscopic biblical scenes warrant a closer look.

Bosch-mania! – Commemorating 500 years since the death of Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch, exhibitions across Europe showcase his nightmarish paintings, many displayed together for the first time. Starting this month, see more than 60 works in Madrid at the Prado’s ‘Bosch: The Centenary Exhibition.’ This fall, a more intimate show opens at Berlin’s Gemaldegalerie, then in December the Doge’s Palace in Venice puts on ‘Bosch and the Mediterranean’—a gran finale to a thrilling quincentennial.

The Vatican Museums – Rome

FOR THE FIRST TIMER – Don’t get stuck following the set route—it’s boring. Instead, head straight for Leonardo and the masters in the Pinacoteca, the Laocoon (one of the world’s finest ancient sculptures), and the painstakingly detailed frescoes of papal territories lining the walls in the Gallery of Maps.

RETURN TRIP TO – DOS – The Gregorian Etruscan Museum, to see the seventh-century BC gold Etruscan ‘bling’ from a nearby tomb and a breastplate embossed with rows upon rows of intricate miniature animals. The Carriage Pavilion has fab Popemobiles from the past.

MOST OVERRATED – The Sistine Chapel. Usually too packed to be enjoyable. Aim to get there at 5 pm, when crowds start to clear out. For the best vantage point, stand at the end below the Creation scenes. Don’t forget to look down— the original mosaic floors are easy to miss.

The British Museum – London

FOR THE FIRST-TIMER – It’s massive. Plan your attack or you’ll burn out. The Lindow Man and the Egyptian mummies are creepy-cool. The tessellated glass roof in the Great Court is awe-inspiring and Instagram-worthy. The Rosetta Stone’s always mobbed—just skip it.

MOST OVERLOOKED – The clocks and watches room. Yeah, it sounds boring, but go just before the hour for a harmony of tinkles and bongs when the clocks strike— it’s kind of magical. Also magical: a ship clock that once fired cannons and played music to mark the time.

RETURN TRIP TO-DOS – The gold jewellery and ornaments in the Ancient Iran room bring the country’s cultural history to life. Same goes for the European artifacts, such as Anglo-Saxon burial masks and 12th-century chess pieces made from walrus tusks. Don’t miss the controversial Elgin Marbles: they make up half the surviving Parthenon sculptures, and are some of the finest Athenian artifacts in the world.

In Private Hands – Whether for prestige, passion, or tax breaks—or all of the above—Germany has more privately owned art museums accessible to the public than any other nation. Many of the finest examples are in Berlin, such as the Boros Collection, a selection of contemporary works housed in a World War II bunker. This summer, the city will get a much anticipated outpost of the Julia Stoschek Collection, a multimedia art institution based in Dusseldorf. South of Stuttgart, a modern concrete building houses Museum Ritter, an impressive array of abstract works.

And in Duderstadt, billionaire Hans Georg Nader has created Kunsthalle HGN, a gallery touting the work of contemporary German artists like Neo Rauch and Helmut Newton. Thanks to deep pockets, the architecture of many private museums is as striking as the collections, as is the case with the Langen Foundation, designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando. It has Europe’s largest private holding of works by Jean Dubuffet, as well as 350 Japanese pieces spanning the 12th to 20th centuries. It makes the otherwise lackluster destination of Neuss, an industrial city near Dusseldorf, worth the trip.