Art in the open, down the Rhine

Van Gogh in a forest, a museum you walk through a meadow to reach, and Renzo Piano's glass house full of Monet.

A art trip through Germany, France, the Netherlands and 1 more country — 5 days and about 739 km. It is built around 4 places the trip exists to include: Kröller-Müller Museum (a museum in the Netherlands), Museum Insel Hombroich (a museum in Germany), Vitra Design Museum (a museum in Germany) and Fondation Beyeler (in Germany). Those are kept whatever else you change; the nights, the meals and the stops in between are chosen for the road you actually end up on.

The best museums on this road are the ones you reach on foot through a landscape. The Kröller-Müller sits in the middle of a national park in the Veluwe: you cycle to it on a free white bike, and inside is the second-largest Van Gogh collection in the world, with a sculpture garden that goes on for hectares. Hombroich, near Düsseldorf, was a private collection put into a river meadow — a dozen pavilions among the trees, no labels, a lunch of bread and eggs included in the ticket. At the far end the Rhine turns into Switzerland, and at Basel the museums come thick. The Vitra campus at Weil am Rhein, just over the German line, is a factory site where every building is by a different famous architect — Gehry's museum, Zaha Hadid's fire station — and you can sit in every chair the company ever made. The Fondation Beyeler, in a Renzo Piano building looking out over fields, holds one of the great private collections of the twentieth century and hangs it with nothing in the way. Four days, three countries, and never more than an afternoon's drive between them. Basel's art fair in June fills every bed for miles; any other month the city is quiet and the museums are open late on Wednesdays.

The places this trip exists for

Pinned, not suggested — the planner is required to include every one of them.

Kröller-Müller Museum
museum · 🇳🇱 Netherlands
Van Gogh in the middle of a national park, reached by free white bicycle, with a sculpture garden the size of a village.
Museum Insel Hombroich
museum · 🇩🇪 Germany
A collection in a river meadow: pavilions among the trees, no labels, lunch included.
Vitra Design Museum
museum · 🇩🇪 Germany
A factory campus where every building is by a different famous architect, and you may sit in the chairs.
Fondation Beyeler
🇩🇪 Germany
Renzo Piano's long glass hall of Monet, Picasso and Rothko, looking out over cornfields.

These are kept whatever you change. Everything else the planner picks is chosen for the road you end up on, and can be swapped.

Museum Insel Hombroich — Anıl Öztaş · CC BY-SA 4.0

Vitra Design Museum — Wladyslaw · CC BY-SA 3.0

Beyeler Foundation — Taxiarchos228 · FAL

One way it works out

From Amsterdam · 5 days · about €688

A real plan, priced the way every trip here is: fuel per country you cross, tolls and vignettes from published tariffs, beds and food from derived local rates. It is one example, not an average — from another town it is a different trip, which is the point of the button below.

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All 4 pinned places are kept — you set the start, the days and who's coming, and the road and the figures are worked out for your door.

The figures above were measured from Amsterdam — yours will differ.