Tour a city’s architecture or an art museum

Touring a city's architecture or an art museum means giving a few hours to looking closely: following a guide along a river of skyscrapers, walking through Gaudí's buildings, or standing in front of a painting you've only seen on a screen. It's the slowest kind of sightseeing, and the one that changes how you see a city.

Where to do it

Barcelona, Spain

Gaudí's buildings, from the Sagrada Família to Casa Batlló and Park Güell, are listed together by UNESCO, and the rest of the Eixample district is a walk through modernist facades. Every major Gaudí site sells timed tickets, so book ahead. In Spain, add Madrid's Prado, which is free in the last two hours of each day.

Chicago, United States

A birthplace of the skyscraper, and the river is the place to see it. The Chicago Architecture Center's boat tour passes more than a century of towers in a little over an hour. Add the Art Institute, one of the great art museums of the United States.

Florence, Italy

The Uffizi holds Botticelli's Birth of Venus and a run of Renaissance masterpieces, with timed tickets that sell out in summer. Outside, Brunelleschi's dome over the cathedral is architecture you can climb. Italy's Renaissance city is small enough to walk everywhere.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

The Rijksmuseum has Rembrandt's Night Watch and Vermeer's Milkmaid; the Van Gogh Museum next door sells only timed tickets online. Then walk the canal ring, where gabled merchants' houses lean over the water. In the Netherlands, book both museums before you go.

Paris, France

The Musée d'Orsay, in a former railway station, holds the great Impressionists: Monet, Renoir, Degas, Van Gogh. It's easier to see in a morning than the vast Louvre. In France's capital, evening openings are the quiet time.

Brasília, Brazil

A whole capital city built from scratch in a few years and inaugurated in 1960, with Oscar Niemeyer's curved concrete cathedral and congress buildings. It's a UNESCO site and a lesson in modernism. Distances in Brazil's capital are large, so join a tour or use taxis.

Oslo, Norway

The white Opera House slopes into the fjord, and you can walk up its roof to the top. Next door, the Munch museum shows versions of The Scream among hundreds of works by Edvard Munch. Norway's capital packs new architecture into a small waterfront.

Mexico City, Mexico

The National Museum of Anthropology holds the great Aztec Sun Stone and treasures from across ancient Mexico, under a vast umbrella roof. The Palacio de Bellas Artes has murals by Diego Rivera and others. Mexico's capital rewards a few days at its museums.

How to make it happen

• Book timed tickets for the famous museums, and go at opening or in the late-evening sessions many hold once a week.
• Pick a handful of works. Choose five things you want to see, find them first, then wander. Two hours is plenty before museum fatigue sets in.
• Take a walking tour. A good architecture guide shows you what to look up at; many cities have free, tip-based tours.
• Look for free hours and days. Many museums waive entry at set times; check their official sites.
• Watch for Open House weekends, when cities like London open buildings that are normally closed to the public.

Many of these buildings are also famous landmarks or part of a World Heritage Site.