Often people ask how they can see the best art while traveling. There are many different ways to accomplish this depending upon you how much time you have and the resources you are willing to devote to seeing artwork.
While most tourists in a new city hit the big name museums featured in their travel guides Though it is impossible and highly inadvisable to try to see all of a city’s art in a day I always recommend that a visitor hit a big museum or two and also allow themselves an hour or two at a smaller, more specialized or local museum. For example, New York’s Museum Mile has many, many world class, big name museums such as the Guggenheim, the Met, and the Cooper Hewitt, but there are often some good things to be found (in a much less crowded environment) at the National Academy Museum or at the New York Historical Society, for example. While traveling in Paris I once added the Picasso Museum to my visits to the Louvre, the Pompidou Center and the Musee d’Orsay to get a more intimate look at some local culture. In Florence I love to go to the Uffizi and the Galleria dell’Accademia but I also love to find the frescoes in some of the old churches and baptisteries along the way. The architectural structures themselves are often exquisite as well and worth the visit. If you have the time, I also love to find out where the gallery district is in any given city and stroll past the galleries to get a feel for the area and what is happening there.