City breaks

City-break inspiration

Choosing a city break destination can be difficult, there are so many inspiring cities vying for attention, what criteria do you use for selection? Travel-Quest is all about specialisms so, keeping with that tradition, here are some city break destinations to inspire you:

Top 3 cities for art lovers:

• Florence, Italy – birthplace of Renaissance Art.
WHY: The Uffizi Gallery (with works by Leonardo Da Vinci, Giotto, Titian, Botticelli, Raphael, ... ); Accademia Gallery (Michelangelo's 'David'); sculpture at the Bargello Museum; frescoes at the Duomo di Firenze Cathedral (and in numerous other churches and chapels in the city); the Pitti Palace galleries; contemporary art at Biagiotti Arte Contemporanea, Il Ponte and the EX3 Contemporary Art Center and modern sculpture in the Marino Marini Museum.

• Paris, France – often refered to as the 'City of Art'.
WHY: The Louvre Art Gallery (home to the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo); Musee d'Orsay; the Picasso Museum; the Rodin Museum; the Pompidou Centre; Jardin de Luxembourg; Museum of Decorative Arts; local and street art in the Place du Tertre and Montmartre; art stalls on the banks of the Seine; and the Eiffel Tower – of course.

• London, UK – where you're spoilt for choice.
WHY: The Royal Academy of Arts, Hayward Gallery, Whitechapel Art Gallery, National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery. And for modern art, the White Cube Gallery, the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts), Tate Modern and the sometimes controversial Saatchi Gallery. For British art there is Tate Britain. And then there is Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth (with its specially commissioned artwork), the Bayswater Road Artist's Gallery (with works on the railings) and the regular Spitalfields Art Market – just for starters!

See the Travel-Quest Art Appreciation section for more ideas»
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Top 3 food and drink cities for foodies:

• Tokyo, Japan – fabulous fish!
WHY: Tsukiji Fish Market (over 450 varieties of fish/shellfish sold daily, arrive by 5am to watch the tuna auction and follow that with a fresh sushi breakfast); more Michelin-rated restaurants than Paris; impressive depachika food floors in department stores; top restaurants (like Tsujitome and Waketokuyama); French-Japanese fusion food (try Chatelain Taillevent-Robuchon or Chez Matsuo); Izakayas (Japanese sake bars with food). The food blog Tokyo Eats has plenty of info on the city's best eating places.

• Bologna, Italy – Italy's culinary capital, not nicknamed La Grassa (The Fat One) for nothing!
WHY: So many good places to eat it's hard to go wrong (try resturants such as Pappagallo, Trattoria Del Rosso, Da Leonida, Da Gianni, Anna Maria, ...); classic Bolognese ragu; tagliatella Bolognese; the Bologna sausage; the Culinary Institute of Bologna (for cooking lessons); ice cream (gelato) and the Carpigiani Gelato Museum; city gourmet walking tours; the Mercato Centrale food market.

• Marrakesh, Morocco – food for the senses, big on flavour and aroma.
WHY: A wonderful mix of North African, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean styles; open-air Djemaa el-Fna street stalls for atmosphere and value; local cuisine including tajine (especially the local tanjia marrakshia), couscous, pastilla and harira soup; Middle Eastern desserts in the markets; mint tea sellers in Djemaa El-Fna Square; cooking workshops at La Maison Arabe hotel; eating from beautfully decorated traditional creamics and tajine pots; tasting samples at Bab Doukkala local food market.

Look at our Gastronomic section for more ideas for food lovers»
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