21 Awesome Virtual Museum Tours Around the World
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Why not indulge in a round-the-world trip from the comfort of your own sofa?
Thanks to the online platform Google Arts & Culture you can now take virtual museum tours free of charge. You can spend a day indoors perusing some of the top exhibitions and art galleries in the world.
Just some of these incredible museums include the Uffizi Museum in Florence, the Louvre in Paris and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
So grab a cuppa, get comfortable and prepare to take a tour around the world, albeit virtually. Here’s how to do virtual museum tours:
1. The National Gallery, London
London’s iconic National Gallery is offering two virtual tours for visitors at home. Thanks to a collaboration with Google Street View you can enjoy panoramic views of the gallery with Renaissance artworks from Northern Italy, the Netherlands and Germany with featured artists including Titian, Veronese and Holbein. The National Gallery also has a virtual tour covering 18 of its rooms which showcase over 3,000 paintings in the collection.
Visit the National Gallery website here to take the tours.
2. The British Museum, London
Known for its permanent collection of eight million works from human history, art and culture, the British Museum is inviting visitors to step inside its virtual Great Court. Discover Egyptian mummies, the Rosetta Stone and artefacts from the Iron Age, Bronze Age and more from across the globe.
Visit the website here to take the virtual tour.
3. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The Metropolitan Museum of Art takes a more laid back approach to virtual museum tours with its award-winning series of six short videos created using spherical 360° technology. Watched more than 11 million times already, these videos feature the museum from perspectives usually unavailable to the public. Viewers can see the museum after hours, get a bird’s-eye view from The Met Cloisters or watch a time-lapse of visitors throughout the day.
Check out The Met 360°Project here.
4. The Louvre, Paris
Visitors can wander through the Louvre in Paris from the comfort of their sofas. You can see Egyptian antiques, the remains of the Louvre’s Moat and the recently restored Galerie d’Apollon which was built as a homage to the Sun King, Louis XIV.
Visit the Louvre here for online tours.
5. The Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
With the help of Google Arts and Culture, you can now see some of Vincent van Gogh’s greatest masterpieces from your home. You can drop by on a virtual visit and explore the museum by floor, see close-ups of each artwork and narrow down the paintings you want to see by styles including Post-Impressionism, Modern Art and more.
See Vincent van Gogh’s masterpieces in a Google virtual tour here.
6. Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Fans of Rembrandt will love Madrid’s Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza’s virtual tour of its Rembrandt and Portraiture in Amsterdam, 1590-1670 exhibit. It features thirty-nine of Rembrandt’s own works together with masterpieces from other artists active at the same time as him during the Dutch Golden Age. This temporary exhibition will be available from now until 24th May 2020.
Check out the virtual museum tours here.
7. National Museum of Modern Contemporary Art, Seoul
The National Museum of Modern Contemporary Art explores the history of Korean Modern Art. Visitors can take six different virtual online tours of the museum from anywhere in the world and focus on styles, including symmetry, oil paint and photography.
Take the virtual tour here.
8. The Guggenheim Museum, New York
The Guggenheim is one of the world’s most famous museums and virtual visitors can see its iconic spiral staircase in the Google virtual tour. Follow the staircase down to discover beautiful works of art from the Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary eras.
Visit the Guggenheim’s virtual museum tours here.
9. The Vatican Museums, The Vatican City
Explore some of Italy’s most exquisite masterpieces from your own home with the Vatican Museum’s 360-degree virtual tours of the Sistine Chapel, Raphael Rooms, Niccoline Chapel and more. Each tour captures a detailed view of some of the most intricately decorated buildings in Italy.
Explore the Vatican Museums from your sofa here.
10. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
If you don’t need the context of the museum walls then you might want to have a look at the National Gallery of Art. Here you can see thousands of artworks complete with descriptions from eras including Baroque, Renaissance, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism and more. There are also two online exhibits to look at – American fashion from 1740 to 1895 and a collection of works from Johannes Vermeer.
See the National Gallery of Art virtual museum tours here.
11. Pergamon Museum, Berlin
Pergamon Museum is the most visited museum in Germany. Although you might not be able to visit it in person right now, you can see some of the museum’s most famous ancient artefacts and archaeological structures including the Pergamon Altar, Market Gate of Miletus, the Ishtar Gate and Processional Way from Babylon and the Mshatta Facade.
Visit Pergamon Museum online tour here.
12. Musée d’Orsay, Paris
Peek inside Paris’ Musée d’Orsay which displays art collections from 1848 to 1914. Take a virtual wander through the gallery’s halls and come across artworks by Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Alexandre Cabanel, Edgar Degas and Claude Monet to name a few.
Visit the museum here.
13. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Step inside Amsterdam’s iconic Rijksmuseum with Google Street View and explore the wonders of the Dutch Golden Age. On this virtual tour, you can find incredible artworks from some of the Dutch finest, including Vermeer, Hals and Rembrandt.
Do the virtual museum tour here.
14. National Museum of Natural History, New York
The Smithsonian offers three tours of the National Museum of Natural History. Visitors can take themselves on a virtual self-guided, room-by-room journey through past, current and permanent exhibits. It takes a little while to grasp but once you’ve got the hang of it you can have a fascinating and uninterrupted insight into the history of the natural world at your fingertips.
Do the online tour via Smithsonian here.
15. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
The J. Paul Getty Museum features works of art dating as far back as the eighth century to the present day. In their virtual Google Street View tour, you can see European paintings, illuminated manuscripts, drawings, sculptures, decorative arts and European, American and Asian photographs.
Visit the museum online here.
16. Uffizi Gallery, Florence
Built in 1590 to house the art collection of Italy’s most famous family, the Medicis, the Uffizi Gallery is home to some of the most extraordinary pieces of artwork in the world. Virtual visitors can see collections of ancient sculptures and artefacts from the Middle Ages to the present day as well as Renaissance paintings from Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Michelangelo and Caravaggio.
Do the Google virtual tour here.
17. National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City
The National Museum of Anthropology is dedicated to showcasing the archaeology and history of Mexico’s pre-Hispanic civilisations. The largest and most visited museum in Mexico houses artefacts and artworks from the Mayan civilisation, Northern and Western cultures, Oaxaca cultures and more.
Check out the online tour here.
18. MASP, São Paulo
MASP – Museu de Arte de São Paulo is a private non-profit museum founded by businessman Assis Chateaubriand in 1947. Designed by Lina Bo Bardi, Brazil’s first modern museum is well-known for its striking radical architecture. Visitors can take a virtual tour of its artwork collections from all over Europe, enjoy sculptures, textiles and academic art.
Take the virtual museum tours here.
19. Tate Britain, London
Tate Britain is well-known for its celebration of British art dating from 1545 to the present day. Specific artists to look out for on your virtual museum tours are J. M. W Turner, William Hogarth, Joshua Reynolds and William Blake.
Visit Tate Britain online here.
20. National Museum, New Delhi
The National Museum is the top museum in India, boasting over 2,00,000 works in its collections both of Indian and international origin and spanning 5,000 years of cultural heritage. Virtual visitors can see exquisite exhibitions featuring prehistoric archaeology, jewellery, Central Asian antiquities, manuscripts and more.
See the National Museum in New Delhi here.
21. Museo Frida Kahlo, Mexico City
La Casa Azul (The Blue House) is where the acclaimed Latin American artist Frida Kahlo was born, lived and died. This intimate museum has nearly 70 items belonging to the late artist, including artworks, personal effects and attire.
Learn about Frida Kahlo here.
Virtual Museum Tours: Final Thoughts
We may not be able to travel or physically explore different cultures during this unprecedented time but we can bring the world a little closer into our home. Google Arts & Cultures has over 2,500 museums and galleries on its platform and some of the world’s top museums have their own virtual tours too. You could argue that seeing these exhibitions online doesn’t come close to witnessing the real thing but it’s a small step towards making the world more accessible again.
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