Art for Everyone

The great thing about this kind of tour is, that you don’t have to be a connoisseur or an expert on the subject to enjoy this kind of vacation – you simply have to be enthusiastic and keen to soak up as much art, culture and cuisine as possible during your holiday.

Local Tours

If you’re staying close to the city centre or a cultural district, it’s always possible to arrange days out or specific tours during a package holiday, particularly around feast days and festivals. Most art tours will have these in mind though and will select your accommodation based on the local amenitites and access to the culture on offer and they can recommend which tours or activities would be of most interest to you.

Tour Specialists

A specifically created art tour really is the ideal break and there are specialist holiday companies who organise popular expert-led art tour vacations, including the Ultimate Travel Company’s tie up with the UK’s leading art gallery, the Tate, for Tate Travels.

European Art

Europe, of course, is a leading destination for art tours – Paris and Rome, Berlin and Barcelona, Florence and Venice, St Petersburg and Madrid are all fabulous cities with an incredible art, cultural and architectural heritage as these ancient cities are steeped in history and culture.

An art tour of Rome – or any Italian city for that matter – would also allow visitors the opportunity to indulge in the finest Italian food; a cuisine that is surely rivalled only by Chinese as the most successfully imported food in the world!

Asian Art and Cuisine

Look further afield, too, to the Far East and to destinations such as Thailand, Vietnam, India and Japan with their diverse religious heritage and sumptuous artistic legacy – not to mention that each of those nations can also boast a divine cuisine that will tempt every taste bud.

Mexico

The ancient civilisation of the Mayans remains a fascinating facet of Mexico, but the modern art movement epitomised by the likes of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera makes Mexico a tempting treat for an art tour, while its celebrated cuisine of tacos, chocolate and tequila is even more of a temptation.

The joy of travelling is in exploring and experiencing new places, events and people, and an art tour provides a wonderful world of discovery. For travellers, the main focus of their trip will to be to soak up the amazing cultural life of their destination, but a terrific added bonus also comes in tasting the excellent local food and drink, all adding to the richness of the experience.

Discover the range of specialist art tours in the 2012 Tate Travels programme as a result of The Ultimate Travel Company’s Partnership with The Tate.  Click here for more information.

To give you an idea of what to expect, this will be the twelfth year of this show, and over the last two years major headliners have included Pet Shop Boys, Neal Young, Smashing Pumpkins and The Flaming Lips. From this you can gather just how wide the musical range is, as it includes alternative, pop, hip hop, jazz, metal and experimental music.

This year the Festival will be stationed within the Parc del Forum leisure site. This is about six km north east of Barcelona’s center, in what is called the Sant Marti district. This will allow for a good variety of places for you to stay, either nearby, or within a reasonable distance with the proper transportation lined up.

You should also know that the price of the tickets is about to increase, so if you plan to attend, save some of your euros by purchasing now. Once you have secured tickets and accommodation you can start to think about how great it will be to see the likes of Bjork, Harvey Milk, White Denim, Yo La Tengo, and Death Cab for Cutie.

As of when I last checked there were approximately fifty different performers, bands and groups scheduled to appear. By just glancing at the line up list you can see how truly eclectic the music will be, and how varied the places these entertainers hail from are. As my dad would say….good stuff!

In fact, you could actually visit the central Pompidou Center in Paris, which is dedicated to both modern and contemporary art, and then to the satellite branch, Pompidou Center-Metz within one day. Perhaps though, considering the amount of material on display, subsequent days would be preferable. This will be a great delight for the true art lovers, but it should be recognised that it might prove a tad too much for those not as invested. Therefore, either space these apart, for the consideration of the other members of your party, or only invite other art lovers.

Should your preference be seeing the wonders of Madagascar, then you have more than one way to go about it. You can study those loveable lemurs, or their nemesis the foosa. Either way, you will be stepping foot onto an island like no other. Plus, there is nothing stopping you from going back to do the other expedition.

I personally have been on two of these trips, and both have been exceptional. Neither was a cake walk, as I encountered leeches on one, and the steepest of slippery slopes on another. And here I am itching to sign up for one more, the only question being do I want to see Mongolia, and stay in a yurt, or assist in tracking dolphin and whales in equally enviable locales.

now, I will not sugar coat it, the cost is not cheap, but the experience in my opinion is priceless. So, while I can’t afford to go frequently, I savour the chance to go when I can. In addition to all this I also know that the money I hand over is used in exactly the manner they say it will be. And that is always a concern on other projects.

My fellow travel companions and I were discussing whether to attend a bullfight while we were all passing through Seville, or to forgo it because of what some might describe as grizzly nature. The argument is the same no matter when it takes place, or where, is it wrong to pay to see the killing of such a proud creature or is it a tradition we may not agree with, but should respect.

Well, luckily, it is not a question that must ultimately be answered because, you can attend a bullfight in Portugal that puts this all to rest. You see in Portugal they have not killed the bull in an arena presentation for many years. So, you can go to see the technique, and the dance which takes place between the matador and the massive beast. It is just the section that so many find disagreeable that will not be completed.

For our group, it was the perfect solution, and felt good to us all. The event itself was very exciting, and none of us believed that we missed out by opting of the more explicit version. In addition, it was quite a bit cheaper to do so.

Malta has definitely made its way on to the DJ summer venue route, and it has even been identified as a favourite for many of those who can truly hold there own. Remember that while Malta is on its way up in the pecking order, it is somewhat new on the scene, so balance whether you are more interested in a holiday that will be packed to the limits due to notoriety, or one that will show that you are in the know for what is cutting edge.