The Museum of Fine Arts Liberec (Galerie Lázně)

Galerie Lázně in Liberec (formerly Regional Gallery Liberec) is one of the Czech Republic’s greatest fine art galleries, and one of the five largest in the country. It began life back in 1953, when the fine art collection was separated and moved from the North Bohemian Museum in Liberec. Since then, the gallery has been building its own collection and exhibition programme with great care.

The gallery moved into a remarkable new home in 2014: the beautifully renovated Emperor Franz Joseph I city baths on Masarykova třída. The revitalization of the building, carried out in 2011–2013, won the Grand Prix Obce architektů, and turned the old rooms of the baths into a first-class setting for art, complete with gallery café, library, and further rooms to enjoy.

Inside, more than 21,000 works of art from Bohemia and the rest of Europe await you: paintings, prints, drawings, and sculptures from the Netherlands, France, Germany, Austria, and the Czech lands. The collections sweep from the Early Modern Period all the way to contemporary art, with outstanding examples of 16th- to 18th-century Dutch painting, 19th-century French and German art, and the story of Czech fine art as it evolved.

There really is plenty to explore. Several permanent exhibitions, among them “Heinrich von Liebieg – Collector and Patron”, “On the Waves of Art”, and “The Golden Age of Dutch Painting”, are joined by regularly changing shows of regional art and of Czech and foreign artists. The gallery also runs guided tours, educational programmes for schools and families, workshops, and other cultural events, meaning there's always a reason to come back.