The top 10 museums in Spain

1. The Prado Museum, Mardid (Museo Nacional del Prado)

The Prado Museum is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It is widely considered to possess one of the world's finest collections of European art, dating from the 12th century to the early 20th century, based largely on the former Spanish Royal Collection and other personal collections. There you can enjoy the fine artworks by Spanish and other European artists such as those of Goya, Rubens, and Velazquez.

2. Queen Sofia National Museum Art Centre, Madrid (Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía)

This museum is dedicated to Spanish art.  It offers a mixture of national and international temporary exhibitions in its many galleries, making it one of the world's largest museums for modern and contemporary art. The most important highlights of the collections are the masterpieces of Picasso and Salvador Dalí. Here, you can appreciate the Guernica of Picasso from a close distance.

3. Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao (Museo Guggenheim Bilbao; Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa)

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a museum of modern and contemporary art designed by Canadian American architect Frank Gehry. The museum is located in one of the richest regions in Spain, Bilbao of Basque Country. This museum is admired as one of the most important works of contemporary architecture. Like the building, the exhibitions are usually about modern art as well.

4. Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum, Madrid (Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza)

Following the Prado and the Reina Sofía national galleries, the Thyssen is the last one of the “Golden Triangle of Art”.  The Thyssen fills the historical gaps in its counterparts´ collections. With over 1,600 paintings, it was once the second-largest private collection in the world after the British Royal Collection. This museum contains several important masterpieces from Rubens, Vincente van Gogh, and Picasso.  

5. Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, Bilbao (Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao; Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa)

The Bilbao Fine Arts Museum is located in the Doña Casilda Iturrizar park in Bilbao, with beautiful views and a peaceful environment. It is the second-largest and most visited museum in the Basque Country because it houses a quite comprehensive collection of Spanish and European art from the Middle Ages to contemporary, such as paintings of Greco, Goya, and Sorolla.

6. Museum of Fine Arts of Seville (Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla)

The museum of fine arts is a museum located in Seville, which contains a collection of Spanish visual art from the medieval period to the early 20^th century. The highlight of the paintings is a collection of paintings by artists from the “Golden Age“ painting in the 17^th century, such as Murillo, Zurbarán, and Francisco de Herrera.

7. City of Arts and Sciences, Valencia (Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias,Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències)

This ¨city¨ is a magnificent mix of culture and architecture in Valencia with several different buildings of different functions. There is a science museum that resembles the skeleton of a whale among the buildings, called Prince Felipe Science Museum. Apart from the museum, there is also an IMAX cinema, an opera house, the largest open-air oceanographic park, a bridge, a covered plaza, and still-under-construction towers. As the name indicated, it is like a futuristic and cultural “city”.

8. Picasso Musem, Barcelona (Museo Picasso; Museu Picasso)

With 4,251 works exhibited by Pablo Picasso, the Picasso museum in Barcelona houses one of the most extensive collections of artworks by the great Spanish modernism master. This museum is a combination of 5 adjacent medieval palaces in the old city center. This is the first museum dedicated to the works of Picasso and the only one created before the artist passed away. If you are a great fan of Picasso, make sure not to miss this one!

9. Dalí Theatre and Museum, Figueres (Teatro-Museo Dalí; Teatre-Museu Dalí)

The Dalí Theatre and Museum is a museum dedicated to the artist Salvador Dalí in his hometown, Figueres, situated in the Catalonian region. The museum was chosen and constructed following the wish of Dalí:

“I want my museum to be a single block, a labyrinth, a great surrealist object. It will be a theatrical museum. The people who come to see it will leave with the sensation of having had a theatrical dream.”

The heart of the museum is the town´s theatre, where one of the first public exhibitions of young Dalí was shown. And he is buried in a crypt below the stage. The museum displays the single largest and most diverse collection of works by Salvador Dalí, the core of which was from the artist's collection.

10. National Art Museum of Catalonia (Museo Nacional de Arte de Cataluña; Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya)

The National Art Museum of Catalonia, also known as the MNAC, is a national museum of visual art located in Barcelona. It is situated at the picturesque Montjuic hill. This museum is famous for its outstanding collection of Romanesque church paintings and Catalan art from the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. The museum is housed in the Palau Nacional, a huge, Italian-style building dating to 1929. 

Getting to know the cultural aspects of a country is the best part for many expats. Here in Adeslas, we not only want to offer you service and guide, but we also want to care for your health and wellbeing by offering our medical insurance, and ensure you a carefree museum trip.

Our contents will be updated according to the most recent legislation. Last update: 10/09/2021