Art and culture

Arts and Culture as a destination

Art and Culture as a travel destination, art museums, exhibitions, concerts are favorite travel purposes or features on a holiday. You become more knowledgeable about a country's culture or an artist's production and importance. The trip becomes richer in experiences, and we as people hopefully also grow a little in a lovely, effortless way. We are on holiday, after all.

Some travel destinations are more obvious than others for cultivating the inner art muse, so big cities in classical Europe, New York, and other metropolis cities like Tokyo, Brazil, etc. are probably our focus points, but www.traveltalk.dk also guides to art and culture that are a little harder and more fun to find for our users!

British Museum

Articles about Art and cultural travel

Le Consortium in Dijon, France
Le Consortium in Dijon, France

The first hint on the theme of art and culture comes here in Dijon, France. A completely different museum of modern art that has the indefinable ability to spot new art trends before so many others.

Richelieu wing and the glass pyramid at the Louvre museum at night in Paris in Ile de France France jpg

Singapore has perhaps the best art museums in the East

And here's another story about art and culture, namely the almost new (2015) museum in Singapore, which houses the largest collection of modern Asian art in addition to being relevant, modern and an experience in itself. Singapore never seizes to amaze.

The Singapore National Gallery opened in 2015 as a modern museum
The Singapore National Gallery opened in 2015 as a modern museum
The great clock in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, the museum that was once a train station
The clock in the Musée d'Orsay is the station's own — the museum was a railway station until 1939

If you are under 26, the French national museums cost nothing.

It's the most overlooked discount in European cultural travel. If you are a citizen or resident of an EEA country and under 26 years old, admission to the Louvre is free — every day, all year round, upon presentation of a photo ID. The same applies to the Musée d'Orsay and the other French national museums. In comparison, a regular ticket to the Louvre costs 22 euros for visitors from the EEA. For a family with two student children, the difference in a day in Paris is several hundred kroner, and it requires no booking — just your passport in your pocket.

The other half of the same planning is the closing days, and they are not the same: the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays, the Musée d'Orsay on Mondays. Two days in Paris on Monday-Tuesday means both major museums have their own days off. Put them on Wednesday-Thursday instead. The Louvre Museum in Paris and the best attractions in Paris have the details.

The museum that was a train station

The Musée d'Orsay opened as the Gare d'Orsay for the 1900 World's Fair and served as a railway station until the trains became too long for the platforms in 1939. The building then fell into disrepair for decades and was close to being demolished in favor of a hotel before reopening in 1986 as a museum of art between 1848 and 1914. The large clock in the main hall is the station's own. It's a point that changes how you see the space: the ship is not built for paintings, it's built for steam trains, and that's why the light falls the way it does.

Culture is not just museums

The biggest mistake in cultural travel is to equate culture with indoor gatherings. Austria's musical heritage lies as much in its concert halls and village churches as in Vienna's museums, and the Amazigh cultural landscape of the Atlas Mountains is a living agricultural community, not an exhibition. The same is true of Italy , where the most interesting places are often those that are still used for what they were built for.

Book a time slot, not a ticket

The major museums today operate on timed admission, and a ticket without a time is not a seat. Popular exhibitions sell out their best slots weeks in advance, while late afternoon hours are often both available and empty. Evening opening one or two days a week is the rule at most major museums in Europe — these are the hours when the famous works can be seen without standing in the third row. And for each museum: check the website to see which day it is closed before booking your hotel. It's a thirty-second check that has saved more city breaks than any guidebook.

The cities where the collection is the whole reason to travel

Some destinations can carry a trip on their art alone. Rome is the densest of them all, with two millennia of layers stacked on top of each other within walking distance, and where the best hours are before ten o'clock. Madrid has its Prado, Reina Sofía and Thyssen-Bornemisza in the same kilometer — that stretch is called Paseo del Arte and can be done in a day if you choose. Chicago is the American surprise, where the architecture is the collection and the city itself is the exhibition.

And then there are the places where art has moved outside. Ekebergparken in Oslo has placed the sculptures in the forest overlooking the fjord, free and open 24 hours a day. It's the kind of solution that makes a cultural trip possible with children who can't stand three hours in a gallery.

Finally, there are the festivals, which move an entire city for a week or two and make planning either a win or a trap. Accommodation prices double, but the program is accessible to everyone, and the street life is part of it. Always check the city's calendar before you lock in a date — it determines whether you get the city you had in mind or a completely different one.

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