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Best Museums in Europe

Europe is one of the best tourist destinations for discovering the world’s most beautiful museums. Here is a list of the best museums in Europe, the must-see museums that tell us about our civilization’s history, from the first fossils to contemporary art.

Explore Europe’s most impressive museums, such as the British Museum in London or the ultramodern Pompidou Center and Tate Modern. Book your hotel at the best-guaranteed price, as well as your best activities, and discover Europe’s best museums.


1. The Pompidou Centre

Centre Georges Pompidou commonly shortened to Centre Pompidou; also known as the Pompidou Centre in English is a complex in the Beaubourg area of the 4th arrondissement of Paris, near Les Halles, rue Montorgueil and the Marais.

It houses the Bibliothèque publique d’information, a vast public library, the Musée National d’Art Moderne which is the largest museum for modern art in Europe, and IRCAM, a centre for music and acoustic research. Because of its location, the Centre is known locally as Beaubourg It is named after Georges Pompidou, the President of France from 1969 to 1974 who commissioned the building, and was officially opened on 31 January 1977 by President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. The Centre Pompidou has had over 150 million visitors since 1977.

2. The British Museum (London)

The British Museum is a museum in London dedicated to human history and culture. Its permanent collection, numbering some 8 million works, is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence and originates from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its beginnings to the present.

3. The Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam)

The Rijksmuseum was founded in The Hague in 1800 and moved to Amsterdam in 1808, where it was first located in the Royal Palace and later in the Trippenhuis. The current main building was designed by Pierre Cuypers and first opened its doors in 1885. On 13 April 2013, after a ten-year renovation which cost € 375 million, the main building was reopened by Queen Beatrix. In 2013, it was the most visited museum in the Netherlands with a record number of 2.2 million visitors.

4. The Louvre (Paris)

The Louvre or Louvre Museum is one of the world’s largest museums and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, France, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement. Nearly 35,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are exhibited over an area of 60,600 square metres. With more than 9.7 million visitors each year, the Louvre is the world’s most visited museum.

5. Prado (Madrid)

More than 2,300 paintings have been incorporated into the Museum del Prado in Madrid since its opening as well as a large number of sculptures, prints, drawings and works of art through bequests, donations and purchases, which account for most of the New Acquisitions.

6. Tate Modern (London)

Tate Modern is a modern art gallery located in London. It is Britain’s national gallery of international modern art and forms part of the Tate group (together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool, Tate St Ives and Tate Online). It is the most-visited modern art gallery in the world, with around 4.7 million visitors per year. It is based in the former Bankside Power Station, in the Bankside area of the London Borough of Southwark. Tate holds the national collection of British art from 1900 to the present day and international modern and contemporary art.

7. The National Gallery (London)

The National Gallery is an art museum on Trafalgar Square in London. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. Its collection belongs to the public of the United Kingdom and entry to the main collection is free of charge. It is the fifth most visited art museum in the world, after the Musée du Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum and Tate Modern.

8. The Anne Frank House (Amsterdam)

Anne Frank is a Jewish girl who has to go into hiding during World War Two to avoid the Nazis. Together with seven others, she hides in the secret annexe on the Prinsengracht 263 in Amsterdam. After almost 2 years in hiding, they are discovered and deported to concentration camps. Anne’s father, Otto Frank, is the only one of the eight people to survive. After her death, Anne becomes world famous because of the diary she wrote while in hiding.

9. Centre Pompidou Metz (Metz)

The first decentralized satellite of a French museum, the Centre Pompidou-Metz is a masterpiece of contemporary architecture. Conceptualized by the architects Shigeru Ban and Jean de Gastines, with Philip Gumuchdjian, who also designed the prizewinning project, there are three exhibition spaces covered by an audacious roof inspired by a Chinese hat. The 77-metre high spire is a nod towards the year 1977, the year the Pompidou Centre in Paris opened. Thanks to its changing exhibitions, the Centre Pompidou-Metz hosts the best of modern and contemporary art.

10. The Serralves Museum (Porto)

The Serralves Museum in Porto is the foremost museum for contemporary art in Portugal, uniquely sited in the grounds of the Serralves Estate, which also comprises a Park and a Villa. Through its collection, temporary exhibitions, performance, education and public programmes, publishing initiatives, and national and international collaborations, the Museum fosters the understanding and appreciation of contemporary art and culture. Introducing the work of the most important artists working today to diverse publics, strengthening ties with the local community, and encouraging reflection on the relationship between art and the environment that is intrinsic to the context of Serralves, are central to the Museum´s mission.

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