Paris is a dream destination for millions of travellers. Here are our 6 recommendations for things to do for free in Paris.

Set in the heart of Florence, inside one of the greatest masterpieces of Florentine Renaissance architecture, the Fondazione offers a rich and varied programme throughout the year, consisting of high quality, world-class exhibitions ranging from Classical art and the Renaissance to the modern era and to contemporary art.

But in addition to its exhibitions, Palazzo Strozzi is a lively venue for numerous other events such as concerts, performances, contemporary art installations, theatrical performances, activities and guided tours for adults and families. Open throughout the year, it also boasts an elegant café and a quality museum shop.

From 24 September 2015 to 24 January 2016 Palazzo Strozzi will be hosting Divine Beauty from Van Gogh to Chagall and Fontana, an outstanding exhibition that sets out to explore the relationship between art and the sacred from the mid-19^th to the mid-20^th century, showcasing over one hundred works by such celebrated Italian artists as Domenico Morelli, Gaetano Previati, Felice Casorati, Gino Severini, Renato Guttuso, Lucio Fontana and Emilio Vedova, alongside such international masters as Vincent van Gogh, Jean-François Millet, Edvard Munch, Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, Georges Rouault and Henri Matisse.

The exhibition offers visitors a unique opportunity to compare and contrast a selection of works of art which, while extremely famous, are observed here in a new and very different light. The show's star exhibits include such masterpieces as Jean-François Millet's Angelus on exceptional loan from the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, Vincent van Gogh's Pietà from the Vatican Museums, Renato Guttuso's Crucifixion from the collections of the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome and Marc Chagall's White Crucifixion from the Art Institute Museum in Chicago.

The exhibition is open from 10.00 to 20.00 daily, with late opening until 23.00 on Thursdays.

Admission costs €10, with concessions for children aged 7 to 18 at €4, free admission for children up to age 6, and a special family ticket for €20.

Tours are by appointment only and are designed for groups of adults, individuals visitors and schools.  The programme also includes a wealth of activities and a special "Family Kit".

Starting 1 November 2015, you can visitDivine Beauty, the new Opera del Duomo Museum and the Baptistry of San Giovanni on a special joint ticket allowing you to explore the fantastic history of Florence and its art from the Middle Ages to the present day.

Berlin is synonymous with art. You don’t need to go much further to bump into someone who, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, has journeyed to the capital of Germany in search of an opportunity. With almost 450 galleries, 20,000 artists and over 3,000 exhibitions yearly, Berlin is experiencing an art boom. It heads the European art scene by a mile.

Gossip has it that over the last 20 years a new art gallery has been opened every week. Faced with that trend, no wonder that, over the last 12 years, Berlin’s galleries have joined forces to launch the Berlin Gallery Weekend (from 29 April to 1 May 2016) – the first of its kind – subsequently replicated in Paris, Vienna and Barcelona. We visited the city to see it for ourselves and spent three days packed with inaugurations, talks, parties and social events at special times to showcase the latest productions. This, just when spring is descending on the city and its streets start casting their gaze outwards.

Zero budget: admission to the galleries and other areas is free-of-charge.

Recommendation: hire a bicycle – distances become shorter when negotiated on two wheels. The city is big and the galleries string out from east to west, although centred mainly on Berlin Mitte, Kreuzberg and Potsdamer Straße. We began our tour – map in hand!

Berlin’s Epicentre – Auguststraße in Mitte

Auguststraße is lined with trendy restaurants and art galleries. This is the historic centre of Berlin; hence its name – Mitte, meaning middle. There we came across the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, a former margarine factory repurposed as an emerging art lab for mapping the latest trends. Right next door, the collector, Thomas Olbricht, presents his private collection, me Collectors Room, an area of 1,300m² with exhibits ranging from works by Cindy Sherman to exotic objects worthy of a curio cabinet. Long-standing venues, including the widely acclaimed Eigen + Art, blend in with the newcomers, like Kicken Berlin and neugerriemschneider, and the elegant building of Sprüth Magers on Oranienburger Straße, bringing a breath of fresh air to the local scene.

One of the latest venues to burst in on the scene, which features the epitome of a fusion between art and gastronomy, is the Jüdische Mädchenschule (Jewish Girls’ School). Housed in this building – which reopened in 2012 after falling into disuse – is theMichael Fuchs Galerieand a number of restaurants which form a nexus between the past and present. Among these isThe Kosher Class Room,which offers traditional Sabbath dishes on the menu, andMogg Deli,the best place for indulging in a good pastrami sandwich.

Before leaving the centre and heading for Kreuzberg, we made a compulsory stop at Clärchens Ballhaus. Opened in 1913, this dance hall is a veritable Berlinese legend which survived two World Wars and numerous Nazi clampdowns. Young and old, tourists, locals, good and bad dancers – there is something infectious about Clärchens which makes you feel at home there!

Around Checkpoint Charlie

Near the Berlin Wall’s most famous checkpoint and also the Jüdisches Museum (Jewish Museum) and halfway between Kreuzberg and Mitte, lies the Galerienhaus. This former Lufthansa headquarters which became a centre for political asylum-seekers in the nineties, houses 11 contemporary art galleries on its various levels. If you chance to go there, be sure to see the Gallerie Nordenhake, the Gallerie ŻAK | BRANICKA and the historic Konrad Fischer Gallery. Although initially founded in Düsseldorf, like so many other galleries in the Rhinelands, it ended up moving to the capital.

A few minutes away in the Mitte direction lies one of the trendiest venues in the area, the VeneKlasen/Werner Gallery, founded by the New Yorker, Michael Werner, who brought a piece of the Chelsea scene to Berlin, making it more spacious, more professional and… more expensive.

Before leaving Kreuzberg, we visited the Church of St Agnes which now houses the König Galerie. Built in the Brutalist style, it was acquired by Johann König and opened to the public as an art gallery in 2015. Here, in what appears to be the end of the white cube, a good itinerary is guaranteed.

Potsdamer Straße – A Trendy Art Boom

We came to Schöneberg, on the old west side, where for many years galleries and creative projects have been mushrooming, taking up every available square metre. The fact is it seems to be a surefire win-win formula – the venues are mutually beneficial in that their accretion and synched opening and inauguration times draw ever more visitors. Among the galleries you simply cannot pass up are the Supportico Lopez and Esther Schipper. However, if time is at a premium and you need to make a choice, head straight for the Isabella Bortolozzi Galerie. The Italian artist opened her gallery in 2008 in the former apartment where the actor and singer Hans Albers lived from 1946 to 1948. The premises have been preserved virtually intact. The walls are lined with wood panelling and secret recesses, which act as a backdrop.

Art galleries housed on a fifth floor without a lift in reclaimed buildings; exhibitions which can only be reached by crossing two patios and three doors… the list goes on and on. If you’re planning to visit the city within the prescribed timeframe, check out the full programme and our daily flights to Berlin. Happy Gallery Weekend!

Text by Núria Gurina for Los Viajes de ISABELYLUIS

Photos by Marco Funke, Genial23, Axel Schneider, Wolfgang Staudt

Brussels has a heady cultural agenda where exhibitions andvernissagesare common fare. Some especially interesting spaces have been unveiled there in recent times, augmenting the established ones. Thus, art enthusiasts and culture devotees in general would do well to visit them on a brief getaway.

The first of these is the ADAM (Art & Design Atomium Museum), located in the Atomium, an iconic construction in the Brussels district of Heysel which was built for the 1958 World Fair. ADAM is an art and design centre which showcases a unique collection of plastic furniture and other objects owned by the Belgian artist, Philippe Decelle, who has been collecting these artefacts since the 1970s. And, while you’re in the vicinity of the Atomium, you should make a point of dropping in on the light and sound installation, ID#2016, which runs until 13 November 2016 and forms part of the ID (Innovative Display) programme, a digital art festival which has been operating since 2013.

Another major cultural landmark in Brussels is MIMA (Millennium Iconoclast Museum of Art), located in the enduringly interesting district of Molenbeek. This space revolves around the highly specific, innovative theme of the evolution of contemporary art following the advent of Internet and the emergence of Culture 2.0.

Another highly edifying cultural landmark in Brussels is the Museum of Natural Sciences, famed for its Dinosaur Gallery, and particularly its iguanodons, the skeletons of which were unearthed in 1878 at a mine in Bernissart in southern Belgium. Be sure to also visit the Gallery of Humankind, a unique exhibition unveiled just a year ago which traces the evolution of man and the human body.

It is always a good time to visit the Bozar Centre for Fine Arts, not only because it is one of Belgium’s most dynamic art hubs (it receives an impressive 1 million visitors each year), but for the building itself. Designed by the acclaimed Belgian Art Deco architect, Victor Horta, it is a magnificent specimen of the country’s architectural heritage. An exhibition showcasing 80 sculptures by Pablo Picasso entitled Picasso. Sculptures is due to run here in the next few months – specifically, from 26 October 2016 to 5 March 2017. Organised in conjunction with the Musée Picasso of Paris, the exhibition will feature works expressing the creative power of the innovative Malaga art genius, who used a host of materials and numerous techniques in his sculptures.

Lastly, an area well worth strolling about and which always throws up some novelty is the Parc du Cinquantenaire (“Quincentenary Park”). Located in this park, a case in point is the Horta-Lambeaux Pavilion which showcases the stunning bas-relief known as Human Passions, the crowning work of Jef Lambeaux, sculpted in white Carrara marble. Another interesting venue is Autoworld, featuring the world’s most important automobile collection which this year marks its 30th anniversary.

Ready to discover these offerings in Brussels? Book your Vueling to Brussels here.

Text by Tusdestinos.net

Images by Tusdestinos.net, IRScNB-KBINTh.Hubin (Museum of Natural Sciences) and Visit Brussels (Olivier van de Kerchove)