Like Brussels, Munich offers a pair of very good museums which add up to a great one. The Alte ("Old") Pinakothek—a remarkable 19th-century survivor worth a view in itself—offers an important group of paintings dating to the early Renaissance, with particular attention to rare German works.

The Neue Pinakothek, also originally built in the 19th century, was devoted at the time to "contemporary" art, and today has built on this to create one of Europe’s largest and best collections of 19th-century art. Although "Alte" and "Neue" began as designations for the items within, today it applies to the buildings as well, which could not be architecturally more different: the old "new" one was destroyed in WWII, and was rebuilt in 1981. Both closed Mondays; admission except Sundays and holidays.