Visit galleries around the world from your sofa

Robbie

As travel bans are still firmly locked in place, those of us with the travel bug (myself included) are struggling to find excitement in our own homes. We are in week 3 of lockdown and hopefully starting to see signs of flattening the curve. As we sit and wait for our lives to return to something that resembles normality, many of us are daydreaming about the trips we’ve taken and the things we took for granted before Covid-19 came into our reality.

For me, galleries and museums play a large part of my holiday time and I’ve recently been thinking about the places that I want to visit when the crisis is over. Until then, Google Arts & Culture is giving us access to a vast collection of artworks from around the globe. The site allows you to search by medium, art movement and even by a specific gallery and while Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss is best viewed in Vienna’s Belvedere Palace, we are still granted access to get up close and personal to it.

For now, snuggle into your favourite armchair with a cup of coffee and take a trip around the worlds most impressive galleries from the safety of your own home. Maybe one day we can help get you to the real thing.

Here are our top 5 favourites that RB visited this week!

MoMa The Museum of Modern Art, New York, United States

Founded in 1929 in New York’s Manhattan Midtown MoMa’s collection has grown to include over 150,000 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, architectural models and drawings and design objects, around 22,000 films and over 4 million film stills, along with 300,000 books. WOW! Here you can see work by van Gough, Picasso, Warhol and 70,000 more artists.

The Starry Night, Vincent Van Gough 1889

Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy

Sitting on the Arno river and one of our favourite hot spots for inspiration, the Uffizi houses Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. You may remember it from the 1999 Maggie Smith film, ‘Tea with Mussolini’. Florence is one of our favourite cities in the world and we can’t wait to return for a luxury short break.

Annunciation, Leonardo da Vinci Around 1472

Palace of Versailles, Versailles, France

Listed as a UNESCO world heritage site for the past 30 years, the Palace of Versailles is one of the most visited cultural sites in the world. It’s maximalist interiors and artworks are one of the most impressive things we’ve ever seen! A must see!

Marie-Antoinette with the Rose, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun 1783

Getty The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, United States

One of our favourite places to visit in person, Getty seems to be so much more than just another museum. With incredible hilltop views of Los Angeles it houses works dating from the 8th century to the twenty-first century. We loved exploring the peaceful gardens here, take a look at some 360 views from Google maps HERE until you can get to the real thing.

A few photographs of the Getty Museum, Los Angeles from our own trip:

Flower Still Life, Ambrosius Bosschaert 1614

MMCA, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Gwacheon-si, South Korea

Another perfectly placed museum sees MMCA sitting in a beautifully surrounded natural landscape. Since opening its doors in 1969 the museum has housed some of Korea’s best artworks.

Enjoying Mt, Cheongsan as a Hermit, Seo Eun-ae 2010

Whilst we may not be able to travel right now, we hope you enjoy our virtual tour around some of the worlds leading art galleries. When you are ready to travel again, we look forward to creating your special holiday memories.

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Pandora Bahrami

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Katie May Medley

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Janet Goodwin

Having just returned from a fantastic long weekend at Disneyland Paris, we had to leave a review for Sam and the team at RB Collection. They removed all the stress from organising the trip and ensured everything was in place for a truly memorable trip for all the family. We can’t thank them enough and we will certainly be back for future holidays. Our experience has been 10/10 👍🏻

Mike Boyden

Just returned home from a wonderful holiday in Madeira arranged by Sam from RB Collection. Every detail from flights, hotel, transfers, recommended restaurants and "must to do's" was excellent and all documents arrived by post in good time for checking before departing on our holiday. Due to the weather, our journey was delayed by two days. However after contacting RB on the emergency number in the holiday package, all was sorted by the team - an upgraded hotel room at the same hotel, flight, transfers, taking away all the stress from ourselves and allowing us to enjoy our extra two days. One cannot put a price on a phone call and text messages when something unfortunate happens and you feel vulnerable. On our return, the excellent service has continued by Sam and colleagues who are now dealing with the necessary correspondence with the airline company. My husband and I and children at home who were concerned when we were stranded, cannot thank the team at RB enough for their support and professionalism and we are looking forward to many more holidays using the company. Tom & Janet

Tom&Janet Marks

We came to RB Collection with an idea of some of the places we wanted to visit in Rajasthan, India - and they made it all happen, expertly and efficiently. Oliver and Clare were a pleasure to deal with, sorting every aspect and adding their own ideas to really enhance this wonderful trip. They checked in while we were away to make sure everything was going well (which it was) and I knew they'd be on hand if we needed anything. Thank you!

David Page

The purpose of this review isn't to confirm that our holiday was a 5 star experience (which it was, by the way) but it's a review to say that RB Collection's involvement in planning, booking and safety netting our holiday experiences has been truly 5 stars. Are people bothered if my wife and I had a great holiday - I suspect no...... Are people interested in the company that was instrumental in creating 5 star holidays - I suspect yes ......and so it's RB Collection's skills and involvement that get this 5 star rating. As a family we have booked our own holidays almost exclusively by ourselves for 35 years - until a year ago when we used RB Collection's services for the first time to book a holiday to the Ice Hotel in Sweden. We chose to book through them because we had no experience or knowledge of the Ice Hotel and their exclusive Ice Hotel Website was great. Their involvement made all the difference - in particular their personal commitment to making things work and since the first contact, they have been getting to know our travel "needs, wants and likes" more by each contact. Our next holiday was a Silversea Cruise - one that we could easily have booked ourselves, but RB's influence allowed us to save a significant (4 figure!) sum. Reason alone to recommend! Our third and most recent booking with RB was a safari which could not have been a better holiday experience. The reasons for this are as follows: 1. Up until raising the possibility, I knew nothing about safaris i.e. where to go / at what time of year / for how long etc. Within 72 hours of a discussion of a suggestion by me for a Tanzania trip (based on a google AI search), I was infinitely far better informed and after weighing up possibilities, we opted for a Kenyan trip to Amboselli and the Masai Mara. What a brilliant decision! 2. Whilst the travel options were perfect for our particular needs, RB's involvement to seamlessly arrange the multiple transfers on our journey came to the fore. This was particularly evident on coming back from Zanzibar (beach unwind) to Nairobi International, which would have presented a significant challenge had we opted for self booking, due to the (multiple) security & immigration stages. (Yes, of course - we would have negotiated the stages - we're grown ups - we can look after ourselves, but oh my. the loss of wasted heartbeats would have been significant!) Turns out that what was arranged for us was faster than "fast track" and I certainly became aware of lots of people looking enviously towards us and our safari representative as we whizzed by! 3. Photography is an important aspect of our holidays. Good photographic subjects / scenes are our means of ensuring that we're seeing good stuff, which - IMHO - is a main focus of a holiday. Our safari guides had been well briefed about my photography wishes and from the get-go, they discussed what we were looking for from our holiday and so every day we had a mutually planned itinerary for the wildlife that never disappointed. Our guides had been particularly selected from the briefing given by RB pre-travel to the safari people. In a nutshell, RB have changed our attitude to holidays and their associated experiences. In our time with them, we have undertaken holidays that we have never done before and we are now definitely thinking differently about what to do in the future. Add to this, the reassurance and safety net that travel agency booking confers and I think that RB Collection definitely deserves a 5 star review. By the way - we live distant to their location - all of our dealings have been by telephone and email so don't think you need to be locals to use their services.

Colin Scott

A big shout out for RB Collection ….they have done it again !!!! Made our World touring a pleasure AGAIN ….having done the cruising in various parts of the world …the Canada trip…..the India & Nepal trip…& just recently the Hongkong Australia New Zealand trip…it’s like being transported on a Dreamliner !every attention to detail from getting to the airport arriving at the destinations & being picked up & taken to the various types of accomadation ….Thanks Team RB & especially to Sam for this last one 🌴☀️😎

Linda Taylor

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