Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum

Kelvingrove opened in 1901 in Locharbriggs red sandstone, a Spanish Baroque pile with two great halls and twenty-odd galleries running off them, and it is free. The mix is deliberately unacademic: Salvador Dali's Christ of Saint John of the Cross, bought by the city in 1952 and argued about ever since, hangs a few rooms from stuffed animals and a Charles Rennie Mackintosh interior. The Glasgow Boys and the Scottish Colourists are the strength of the picture collection. Above the central hall stands a concert organ of 1901, played free most days at one o'clock, which fills the whole building and stops conversations mid-sentence two floors away.

What you actually see

• Christ of Saint John of the Cross - Dali's 1951 canvas, bought by the city in 1952.
• The Glasgow Boys - the late nineteenth-century Scottish painters, shown in depth.
• The organ recital - the 1901 concert organ played free in the central hall most days.
• The Floating Heads - dozens of cast expressions suspended above the west court.

When to go

Open daily and free, so it absorbs a wet Glasgow afternoon better than almost anything else in the city. The organ recital is at one o'clock most days and worth timing for. Weekday mornings in term time are calm; weekends and school holidays bring families in numbers. Allow half a day, more if the picture galleries hold you.

Honest expectations

Free entry means school groups, and the central hall carries every sound in the building. The layout confuses people, with two levels and no obvious circuit. Labelling is thematic rather than chronological, which frustrates anyone wanting a straight art-historical run-through. The cafe queues at lunch and the nearest parking is on-street and metered.

Nearby

Kelvingrove Park, the University of Glasgow tower and the Riverside Museum downhill.