Best European cities for art lovers including Paris and Rome

Art tourism is rising in popularity as many travellers enjoy exploring destinations that offer plenty of opportunities to admire their architecture and learn about their history.

This form of travel, also known as creative tourism, involves visiting spots that feature art displays. It is considered a sustainable form of tourism as it promotes the conservation of historical destinations and cultural space while allowing communities to fund the restoration of buildings that might have fallen into disrepair or neglect.

Some of the most popular capital cities in Europe for art lovers are Paris, London, Berlin and Amsterdam. All these cities have plenty of art galleries, statues as well as street art that holidaymakers enjoy.

London also came first alongside Paris
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To inspire art lovers, Ubuy France has created a ranking of the top 20 European cities for art lovers – counting the number of art galleries, both those you need to pay for and those offering free entry, the number of statues and monuments, as well as the number of pieces of street art in each European country’s capital city.

In joint first place, London, UK and Paris, France both scored 166 points according to Ubuy’s metric. The most impressive aspect about London was its high number of galleries at 259, 29 of which offer free entry. Paris also has a very high number of monuments and statues at 796, as well as being home to the most-visited art gallery in the world, the Louvre.

Prague is a popular destination among people who love art
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In second place, Prague, Czech Republic has a score of 155. The Czech capital has 236 galleries, including The National Gallery Prague which is Europe’s second oldest art gallery.

It was followed by Berlin, Germany, scoring 152. It has 618 places where you can see works of street art, with one of the most notable locations being the East Side Gallery, a mile-long stretch of the Berlin Wall. The art here includes restorations of original pieces painted in 1990 after the wall was brought down.

Prague is a popular destination among people who love art
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Getty Images/iStockphoto)

In fourth place, Amsterdam, the Netherlands scored 151, just behind Berlin. This city has 103 galleries, just over 10% of which are free to visit. Noteworthy Amsterdam galleries include the Modern Contemporary (or Moco) Museum, where you can find iconic pop art from artists like Andy Warhol and Keith Haring.

Lisbon, Portugal ranks in fifth place, with a score of 147. There are a huge 637 works of street art in the Portuguese capital, which is well known for its street art scene – the city’s large and beautiful murals are especially popular.

Rome took the sixth spot in the ranking
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Speaking on the report, Faizan Khan at Ubuy said: “We really enjoyed putting together this research on the best places to see art in Europe. It was important to us to include street art and public art like statues as well as more traditional gallery spaces – it’s a totally different way of seeing art, when you explore the city looking for it, taking in all the sights as you go by! And when the city itself is your canvas you can play with size and scale a lot more.

“There are also lots of amazing pieces of street art by artists whose work you might not be able to find in galleries, although there are definitely a lot of artists who have crossover appeal like Bansky and the Portuguese street artist Vhils. Vhils’ outdoor work involves chiselling huge portraits into walls, but you can also find his work on display in galleries around the world as he’s become more popular.”