Vienna

The densest classical music city on earth, and the cheapest way into a world-class opera house: standing room costs less than a slice of cake.

Vienna spent four centuries as an imperial capital and kept the infrastructure. The Staatsoper plays roughly fifty different works in a season, more than any other opera house in the world, and sells around five hundred standing places for every performance at a price that has stayed deliberately, politically low. Queue in the late afternoon, pay less than a coffee and a cake, tie your scarf to the rail to claim your spot, and hear one of the great orchestras from ten metres away.

The museums match the stages. The Kunsthistorisches holds the largest Bruegel collection anywhere, the Albertina keeps Dürer's hare in a climate-controlled drawer and brings it out rarely, the Leopold owns the Schiele that defines the city's self-image. All of them are calm in a way that London and Paris cannot manage, because Vienna gets a fraction of the visitors and has the same amount of art.

What the city does not have is a night. Contemporary Vienna is improving, the Gürtel arches programme decent live music and the MuseumsQuartier courtyard fills up in summer, but a visitor who comes for the small hours has chosen the wrong city on this list.