Art

A good alternative to the more well-known museums in Paris is the Musée Carnavalet (23 rue Sévigné, 75003 Paris; phone 01 44 59 58 58).

Pilgrims have been making the trek up Our Lady’s Hill to the Shrine in Montserrat, Spain, for centuries, but it wasn’t until 1986 that the subject of August’s photo was installed near the top of the path.

It’s a sculpture of St. George by Catalan artist Josep Maria Subarichs (b. 1927). Subarichs is best known for carving the Passion Façade at Sagrada Família cathedral in Barcelona.

In Amsterdam, the Netherlands, the Neerlandia Building (part of the 17th-century Amstelhof building) is the first phase of the master plan for the Hermitage Amsterdam, which in six galleries will present small, temporary exhibitions drawn from the collection of The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. Each exhibition will be on view for about five months.

To be shown Sept. 18, 2004-Feb. 13, 2005, will be “Nicholas & Alexandra,” featuring personal possessions, correspondence, paintings, photos and objets d’art owned by the last Tsar of Russia and his family.

Aarhus, Denmark, is home to ARoS, a new 10-story art museum in the city center. ARoS houses art from the 1700s to the present day along with the personal sketches, letters and notebooks of Danish painter Per Kirkeby. For info, visit www.aros.dk.

Reach the Danish Tourist Board at 212/885-9700.

In southeastern Brazil’s Minas Gerais state, the botanic garden and art gallery Centro de Arte Contemporânea Inhotim (Rua B, 20, Inhotim, Brumadinho, MG, Brazil 35460-000; phone +55 31 3571 9700) spans 5,000 acres and offers two dozen art pavilions with contemporary art by Brazilian and international artists.

Admission is free on Tuesday, BRL20 ($10) Wed.-Thurs. and BRL28 ($14) Fri.-Sun. Extra, a BRL10 pass gives use of hop-on/hop-off electric vehicles driven by staff between three stops in the park.

Hidden behind closed doors for over two centuries, the Royal Academy’s suite of Fine Rooms has been restored to its Neo-Palladian glory and in March opened to the public for the first time.

My wife, Kathy, and I took a cruise in June ’11 that stopped at Le Havre, France, from which we took a taxi to Giverny and Rouen to see where Monet painted.

Some of my favorite artworks are the sculptures by Gustav Vigeland in Frogner Park in Oslo, Norway (Kirkevelen, Middelthuns Gate, 0268 Oslo — admission free).

Queen Margrethe II, celebrating 40 years on the throne of Denmark in 2012, is a respected artist, textile designer and book illustrator (she illustrated two Danish editions of Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings”).

Works of hers — oil paintings, watercolors, church textile designs, décopage, scenography and embroidery — can be seen in the exhibit “Essence of Colour,” Jan. 28-July 1, 2012, at the Arken Museum of Modern Art (Skovvej 100, Ishøj Municipality; phone 43 54 02 22), 15 minutes south of Copenhagen.