Free things to do

Orange trees laden with fruit framing a white classical building in the Giardino degli Aranci on Rome's Aventine Hill.

The Aventine Keyhole: Rome’s Secret Framed View of St Peter’s

The Aventine Keyhole is a tiny hole in the green door of the Knights of Malta priory that frames the dome of…

Tree-lined gravel avenue carpeted with autumn leaves running between old headstones in a park-like cemetery.

Assistens Cemetery: Copenhagen’s Prettiest Park Where Andersen and Kierkegaard Rest

Assistens Cemetery in Nørrebro is a leafy 1760 graveyard that Copenhageners use as a park — a quiet, local alternative to the…

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Barcelona

Bunkers del Carmel: Barcelona’s Best Free 360-Degree View, on an Old Anti-Aircraft Battery

The Bunkers del Carmel are the concrete platforms of a 1937–38 Civil War anti-aircraft battery on the Turó de la Rovira hill,…

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Paris

The Salle Ovale at BnF Richelieu: Paris’s Most Beautiful Reading Room, Free to Anyone

The Salle Ovale at the Bibliothèque nationale de France's Richelieu site — a glass-domed, amphitheatre-shaped reading room completed by Jean-Louis Pascal —…

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Disused railway tracks overgrown with wild vegetation

Paris

La Petite Ceinture du 15e: Walk Paris’s Abandoned Railway Line

The Petite Ceinture is the 36km freight railway that circled Paris until the 1980s, and the 1.3km stretch through the 15th arrondissement…

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London

The Barbican Conservatory: London’s Hidden Jungle in a Concrete Maze

Hidden on the third floor of the Barbican's brutalist concrete estate is a steamy tropical glasshouse packed with more than 1,500 species…

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A dimly lit gallery of classical marble statues and busts on plinths

London

Sir John Soane’s Museum: London’s Strangest House, and It’s Free

Sir John Soane's Museum is the former home of a Georgian architect who crammed it, floor to ceiling, with antiquities, sculptures, paintings…

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Vienna

Fernwärme Spittelau: Vienna’s Rubbish Incinerator Turned Hundertwasser Fantasy

Fernwärme Spittelau is a working Vienna waste-to-energy plant that Friedensreich Hundertwasser reclad in mosaic tiles, wavy lines and a golden ball on…

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A dense stack of brightly coloured vintage neon signs glowing at night

London

God’s Own Junkyard: A Neon Wonderland in Walthamstow

God's Own Junkyard is a Walthamstow warehouse packed with hundreds of vintage and hand-made neon signs — old shop fronts, film and…

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London

Leake Street Arches: London’s Legal Graffiti Tunnel Under Waterloo

Leake Street is a 300-metre road tunnel under Waterloo station where graffiti is completely legal — the only place in central London…

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