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This is a Scottish Episcopal Church which was built in 1818. It was not until the 1850s, however, that stained glass designs were incorporated into the windows, and this practice continued into the Twentieth century. In the mid-1980s all the glass was taken out, cleaned and repaired.
The church is a fine building and its stained glass is remarkable for the consistency of its design. Most of the windows were made in the studios of Ballantine and Allen of Edinburgh. Where the appearance of most churches has evolved over many centuries, St John the Evangelist offers a concentrated view of largely Nineteenth century Scottish style and design.
Church of St John the Evangelist, Princes Street, Edinburgh EH2 4BJ. Most buses stop alongside the church, which is at the far end of Princes Street gardens.
www.stjohns-edinburgh.org.uk
These are two first-class galleries, across the road from one another, in Belford Road, some 15 minutes' walk from the city centre. The collections are diverse, of very high quality, and contain a comprehensive display of painting and sculpture from 1900 to the present time.
Only a portion of the entire holding can be shown at any one time. Accordingly a selection is rotated periodically, with special exhibitions mounted in the Dean Gallery, where there is, in addition, a permanent show of the work of Eduardo Paolozzi - a local hero with an international reputation.
Entry is free. The galleries have shops, selling scholarly material as well as postcards and gifts, and the Cafe Newton in the Dean Gallery is particularly attractive, with good food at sensible prices. The staff at both galleries are welcoming and helpful.
Belford Road, Dean Village, Edinburgh. Number 13 bus, or the National Galleries of Scotland free bus service, which runs a return journey, every 45 minutes, from the National Gallery complex in the city centre and visits each of the five national galleries.
www.nationalgalleries.org
The Chateau de Villandry and, especially, its gardens, are highly recommended if you are near Tours, or well worth going out of your way to visit if you are travelling through France.
The gardens in particular are delightful and anyone interested in growing vegetables as well as flowers will be thrilled by the extensive collections of plants set out in formal and ornamental beds surrounding this beautiful Loire chateau.
The buildings and gardens were rescued by Dr Joachim Carvallo in 1906 and have been in the care of his family ever since. Excellent shop and grounds with good access for people with mobility difficulties.
Chateau de Villandry, 37510 Villandry, near Tours, France. On route D7, some 14km west of Tours. www.chateauvillandry.com Ample free parking nearby.
The Musee des Beaux Arts is highly recommended as it offers a fine collection of both painting and sculpture, and furniture, set in a building of considerable beauty and architectural interest.
Highlights include an outstanding group of Italian, French and Flemish paintings from the later Middle Ages donated by a local benefactor, a group that has been strengthened by the addition of two panels by Mantegna. Other very good pieces come from succeeding centuries and include work by Rubens, Rembrandt, Boucher, Monet and Rodin. Altogether this is a first rate collection. The museum is set in a fine garden, and nearby is a huge 200-year-old Cedar of Lebanon.
Across from this tree and behind glass there is a stuffed elephant, once part of Barnum's Circus. This beast died while the circus visited Tours, just before World War I, and was promptly de-boned, stuffed and mounted. The result on show here is somewhat bizarre and looks like a very large, grey, hot-water bottle with four legs and a trunk. Worth a look, but the museum is the highlight.
Next to the cathedral in Tours city centre, 18 place Francois Sicard 37000 Tours. Note the museum is closed on Tuesdays. www.musee-beauxarts@ville-tours.fr
The chateau and the little town of Azay-le-Rideau are beautiful and justly popular. The chateau is a compact, wedding cake of pale stone, with its many turrets and pinnacles reflected in the moat that surrounds the entire building. It is set in parkland, and there are fine outbuildings, including stables.
There is a good museum shop with mementoes as well as scholarly material. Much of the town centre is pedestrianised and there is a large number of good hotels, restaurants and bars. Parking is plentiful.
The place is usually busy at peak holiday times but it can accommodate large numbers of visitors. Go out of the main season if you want it more or less to yourself.
Azay-le-Rideau is just off the D751, roughly halfway between Chinon and Tours, in the Touraine, France. Chateau Azay-le-Rideau 37190. www.monuments-nationaux.fr
The house and garden of the painter, Claude Monet (1840-1926), are now so popular that it is difficult to explore them without being accompanied, four abreast, by hundreds of people all keen to see and photograph every last feature of his kitchen, dining room, iris bed, wisteria arch and lily pool. But persist! The effort is worth it, especially if you can avoid the peak holiday periods.
The place is very beautiful, highly evocative and thoroughly well maintained. Everywhere you look, the paintings Monet created between 1883 up to his death are marvellously brought to life.
The inevitable shop, which is housed in the painter's former studio, where the huge waterlily paintings were made, is worthwhile and comprehensive. There are extensive free car parks nearby.
Fondation Claude Monet, 84 rue Claude Monet - 27620 Giverny, Eure, France. Tel (0033)(0)2 32 51 28 21. Entry 5.50 euro per person. www.fondation-monet.com
Laugharne is now almost entirely associated with Dylan Thomas, and understandably so, but it is a beautiful village in its own right, on a stunning estuary (the Taf), with a magnificent castle standing at the water's edge.
The buildings associated with the writer - Brown's Hotel, the boathouse, and others - are well preserved without having been put in mothballs, and the entire place is a pleasure to visit, not least because the dead hand of the heritage industry has been largely kept off.
There are lots of good places to eat and drink, many of them offering local dishes and brews. There is also a very good second-hand bookshop.
By road, turn off the A40 from Carmarthen just before St Clears, on to the A4066 to Laugharne. There is a free car park in the centre of the village, alongside the castle. Don't park in the High Street, it just bungs things up.
This Old Masters Picture Gallery is attached to the Zwinger (the former royal palace) and was rebuilt in 1964 under the old East German state.
It has an outstanding range of work from the late Middle Ages up to the end of the 18th century. Highlights include paintings by Van Eyck, Durer, Cranach, Raphael, Titian and Rembrandt.
You can buy a day ticket costing 12 euro for this and all the other galleries and museums in and close to the Zwinger. Very good value considering the range and quality of the collections included in the price. Audio guides in English. Note that the modern art gallery (19/20th centuries) is closed for refurbishment until 2008.
Semperbau, Zwinger, Sophienstrasse. Trams 4, 8 or 9 to Theaterplatz. Closed Mondays. www.skd-dresden.de
The writer Schiller is a local celebrity and this restaurant and beer garden commemorates him in an attractive way by serving good quality food and drink at reasonable prices.
The tables outside are crowded from about seven o'clock on, but there seems always to be room, and the atmosphere is welcoming and cheerful.
Schillerplatz, Loschwitz; about 15 mins out of the city centre, on Tram 6 or 12 from Postplatz (Dresden), or bus 85.
www.schillergarten.de
Dresden has the largest fleet of paddle steamers in the world. They are moored on the Elbe below the Old City, and offer cruises lasting from an hour, down to the Blue Wonder bridge at Loschwitz and back, or to Meissen, to a week (to Magdeburg, among other places).
Food and drink are served (at very reasonable prices), and some trips are feature Dixieland jazz bands.
Dresden quayside, below the Altstadt (old city centre).
Fares range from around £10 (for the hour trip) upwards.
Tickets bookable in advance from the box office on the quay.
This museum in the city centre reopened in September 2006 after an extensive restoration.
It shows treasures of the Saxony royal house - in particular, decorative objects and jewellery from about 1650 to 1800.
The design of the museum combines the modern with settings appropriate to the period of the exhibits.
All signs are in German and English.
A visit here would interest both old and young.
Residenzschloss, Dresden city centre, Sophienstrasse.
Tram or bus stop Theaterplatz.
British and American visitors may, understandably, feel distinctly uneasy about coming to Dresden, but the extensive and now largely complete rebuilding of the city centre offers some reassurance that the devastation has been overcome if not forgotten.
The city skyline has been meticulously restored to its late 18th century appearance, and the area around Theaterplatz, the Zwinger (the old royal palace) and the Opera is magnificent.
Dresden is well worth seeing.
Trains from Dresden Airport to Hauptbahnhof are frequent and fast (it's only 9km out of town).
The city's public transport system is excellent, combining regular buses, trams and an overground (S-bahn) service.
If you liked Rosenborg Palace in Copenhagen you'll like Frederiksborg even more because it's in the same Danish Renaissance style (toy soldier castle) but even bigger. Like most royal things in Denmark it was originally built for Christian IV (about the time of our Charles I) but suffered a disastrous fire in the 19th century. It was then restored to its original appearance by the brewing family of Jacobsen (of Carlsberg fame) and since then has been the Danish Museum of National History.
Its interiors are magnificent and show a range of works of art, including the national portrait collection. Beautiful gardens outside.
Hillerod, a short train and bus ride from Copenhagen. S-tog lines A or E. Buses nos 701 or 702 from Hillerod station. www.frederiksborgmuseet.dk
Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770 - 1844) was a neoclassical sculptor and gained a huge reputation during his lifetime. He is justly celebrated in Denmark and this museum is well worth a visit, especially if you like Wedgwood blue Jasper ware - his work is of that kind. Thorvaldsen, like some other Scandinavian sculptors, such as Gustav Vigeland at Frogner Park in Oslo, was never knowingly understated, and there are some huge and ungainly pieces here. But the best of his work is elegant, cool and fresh. At his own wish, Thorvaldsen himself is buried in the museum's rose garden but you may not want to know that.
Bertel Thorvaldsens Plads 2, Copenhagen. Closed Mondays.
www.thorvaldsensmuseum.dk Buses 1A, 2A, 15, 26, 29. S train or Metro to Norreport.
This gallery opened in 2002 and shows the visual arts and design of the 20th and 21st centuries. It was designed by Stephan Braunfel. It is spacious, full of natural light from a huge rotunda, and offers both a permanent collection and changing exhibitions. It is a pleasure to visit. The design work in particular is imaginatively displayed, on ramps, on huge open lifts that revolve in the air, or suspended at eye level from the high ceilings. Like the other nearby museums, it has a good cafe, and an attractive shop that sells both mementos of your visit and scholarly material. The entry fee was 9.50 euros but that covered all the shows offered in the gallery.
Museum District; tram 27 from Karlsplatz (Stachus) www.pinakothek-der-moderne.de
Rome is overwhelming. But I have some reservations. Compared with other European cities its facilities for visitors are primitive. The main bus and tram station in front of the central station was a free for all for traffic (this is true of the city as a whole), and the melted tarmac was churned up into waves so that one had to totter across a petrified sea to catch a bus.
The ticket machines for the Metro were generally not working and there were vast queues for the one booth that seemed to be open. Indeed, queueing seemed to be imposed upon all visitors who wished to see any of the city's sights. Moreover, if you had a mobility difficulty, such as being confined to a wheelchair, you could forget a place like the Forum, which required climbing gear to explore it - so steep were the steps. There was litter everywhere.
In contrast Vatican City appeared well cared for and receptive to visitors. I wondered how much of the money made from visitors to Rome was being fed back into the conservation of monuments and improvements in facilities. I visited Rome for the first time in March 2006, and I would be interested to know if more recent visitors have seen progress in these respects.
Rome, Italy, Eternal City.
The Priory is a former hospital dating from the end of the 17th century. It was later used as a religious retreat. In 1913 the painter, Maurice Denis, who was deeply religious, as well as being a leading theorist of Post Impressionism, acquired the building and its grounds.
The Priory now houses a small but good collection of French art from the period 1880 to 1940, including Symbolism and Post Impressionism, especially the work of the Pont Aven artists and the Nabis.
The gardens are very beautiful and show sculpture by Bourdelle and Maillol. It's a quiet and contemplative sort of place except when the primary schools are in for an afternoon of art.
2 Rue Maurice Denis, 78100 St Germaine-en-Laye, west of Paris. Metro/RER from Chatelet to St Germaine-en-Laye. Then 10 minute walk through the town. There is said to be a bus but I never saw it.
This is a small public gallery showing paintings and some sculpture in a former private house (often the best way to show art collections) and concentrates largely on Danish work of the 18th and 19th centuries.
If you like landscape, interiors and small genre painting, this is a good place to visit. The house is around the back of the main national gallery and across a small park.
Stockholmsgade 20. Metro stop Norreport. Buses 6A, 14, 40 and many others (check bus stop signs). www.hirschsprung.de
Roskilde was once the capital of Denmark, and the beautiful cathedral there (a World Heritage site) contains 38 royal tombs, including that of Harald Bluetooth.
The fjord is a short walk down the hill and has an extensive museum and boatbuilding yard where traditional Viking longships are made and sailed before your very eyes.
When I visited the place it was swarming with tiny children all done up in lifejackets enthusiastically climbing aboard these craft and setting sail, under expert supervision. The Vikings are evidently still keen.
Roskilde town, a short train ride from Copenhagen central station. Then walk to the cathedral and fjord.
This is Sweden's national gallery and shows a wide range of work from the middle ages to the start of the twentieth century.
Like the other countries in Scandinavia, Sweden's painters especially loved landcape and nature, and there are many beautiful examples of this kind of work. The murals on the grand staircase are by Carl Larsson.
Nationalmuseum, a short walk from Gustav Adolf's Torg (city centre) westwards, along the waterfront, past the Opera House.
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Max Reger is the pen name of a former art school principal who now has the time to visit galleries and museums in Europe to see some of the art and design at first hand that before he mostly only knew from books. He says, "I discovered Guardian Unlimited Been there earlier this year and look forward to becoming a regular contributor."has posted 37 tips
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