The Best Museums

Rietberg Museum: Some of Europe's most interesting collections were amassed by gifted amateurs with enough money to pursue their hobbies. This museum honors the acquisitive skill of Baron von der Heydt, who donated his collection to the city of Zurich in 1952. It includes sculptures and artworks from the Americas and North and South Asia, archaic Buddhist art, carpets from Armenia, and masks from Africa and Oceania.

Landesmuseum (Swiss National Museum, Zurich): This museum traces the growth and development of Swiss civilization from prehistory to the modern age. The collections include prehistoric artifacts, mementos from the Roman and Carolingian empires, and artworks from Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance periods. There are also unusual collections of Swiss clocks, Swiss armor and weapons, and folkloric costumes and artifacts from each of the country's cantons.

Kunstmuseum (Fine Arts Museum, Basel): Its first acquisition goes back to 1662. Since then, the bulk of the museum's 3,000 artworks have included works by Swiss and German artists from the 15th and 16th centuries. Despite the excellence of its old master paintings, the museum is especially known for its large collections of modern works, only a fraction of which can ever be exhibited at the same time.

Kunstmuseum (Fine Arts Museum, Bern): Bern's premier museum, this civic showcase contains everything from 13th-century Italian primitives to one of the most complete collections of works by Paul Klee anywhere.

Musée d'Art et d'Histoire (Art and History Museum, Geneva): Geneva's premier museum devotes equal space to exhibits on the history of civilization, the civic history of Geneva, archaeology, and world-class painting -- everything from medieval to modern art.

Verkehrshaus der Schweiz (Swiss Transport Museum, Lucerne): One of Switzerland's newer museums, founded in 1959, this collection pays homage to the railway, auto, and airplane industries that helped propel Europe into the modern age. It contains more than 60 historic locomotives, 40 automobiles, 50 motorcycles, and dozens of other conveyances. Other exhibitions are devoted to cable cars, steamships, and spaceships. There's even a planetarium.

• Amsterdam
• Athens
• Barcelona
• Copenhagen
• Dublin
• Edinburgh
• Frankfurt
• Geneva
• Lisbon
• London
• Madrid
• Milan
• Munich
• Paris
• Prague
• Rome
• Shannon
• Venice
• Vienna
• Zurich