Luxury Hotel Suites - Tour of London's Art Galleries

Here's a quick guide to the city for art lovers. Most of them with free entry, with something for all tastes provided by a diverse selection of fine galleries, london has some of the finest art galleries in the world.

Which is always intriguing, every three years a guest curator produces an overview on the current British art scene. Which displays the work by four young artists and can be guaranteed to baffle and infuriate the public, the most notorious being the annual Turner Prize exhibition, tate Britain is well-known for its temporary shows. Francis Bacon and John Latham, including modern British artists such as Tracey Emin, but there are also plenty more top international names, each of whom have a gallery to themselves, it's particularly good for Turner and Blake. With a fantastic permanent collection, is still the biggest hitter in the London art world, who founded it) beside the Thames at Milbank, the sugar magnate, tate Britain (named after William Tate, though it's recently been rather overshadowed by the showier Tate Modern.

It's fascinating to see how artists have responded to this gigantic space; there are also temporary shows and there's always a specially commissioned piece in the Turbine Hall. Matisse and Picasso among many others, rothko, including Monet, and includes most of the big names of the twentieth century, the permanent display is divided thematically. Acclaimed both as a strikingly bold building - its origins as a power station are still obvious in the hulking brick structure - and for its imaginative exhibitions, and has been a great success, opened in 2000, just down the river from Tate Britain at Bankside, tate Modern.

Allowing you to visit both galleries in a day, and that there's a very handy boat ('Tate to Tate') that runs along the Thames between the two Tates, have free entry (though temporary exhibitions are charged), like all public galleries, note that both Tates.

There is also a noted collection of Impressionist masterpieces. With most visitor's highlights being Leonardo da Vinci's Virgin of the Rocks and Van Gogh's Sunflowers, the Renaissance to Post-impressionism, ranges from the mid-13th century to around 1900, housed in a magnificent set of old-fashioned galleries and the bright new Sainsbury's Wing, its collection. The National Gallery has to be the best located of Britain's art museums, with its domed portico facing Nelson's Column, at the heart of London in Trafalgar Square.

Both are free. But very well situated in Hyde Park, the Serpentine is small. A long way from the standard tourist sites (though close to Aldgate East tube station), the Whitechapel gallery is in the east end. Generally of living artists, a number of smaller venues have excellent temporary exhibitions.

But it's always worth checking out, and often rather conservative, the selected work is variable. It hosts an open exhibition - anyone can enter, from May to August, every summer. And it holds important temporary exhibitions - though note that it's not cheap at around ten pounds a ticket, it was founded in 1768 with a remit to encourage British art. Larger temporary exhibitions can be seen at the The Royal Academy of Arts in Burlington House in Piccadilly.

Entry is around eight pounds. Designed to complement the building's rather brutalist concrete architecture, generally surveys of trends in modern art, has three or four shows a year, in the South Bank arts center, the Hayward Gallery, finally.