Alternatives

It's all well and good seeing the famous sights around the world, but if you want a bit less of a crowd or something slightly different, TTel offers you some ideas:

Britain

Honeypot
Dove Cottage, Grasmere, Lake District
It's tiny, it's atmospheric, it's laden with literary significance but the long queues of aficionados kill something of the atmosphere.
www.wordsworth.org.uk
Quiet spot
Wordsworth's House, Cockermouth
The poet's birthplace is harder to get to than Grasmere, but worth the trek: this lovely town house and garden has been restored by the National Trust to reflect the 1770s, in which Wordsworth grew up.
www.wordsworthhouse.org.uk
Honeypot
York Minster
One of the great medieval cathedrals of Europe, it draws about 800,000 visitors a year – a steady stream even at quiet times.
www.yorkminster.org
Quiet spot
Lincoln Cathedral
Seventy miles south of York, Lincoln is also one of the great medieval cathedrals of Europe, but it gets not many more than 100,000 visitors a year. Oh, and admission is £6 a head compared with £8 at York.
www.lincolncathedral.com
Honeypot
Hampton Court
Henry VIII's fabulous Tudor palace, confiscated from Cardinal Wolsey, and adapted later by William III, comfortably absorbs half a million visitors a year, but is rarely quiet.
www.hrp.org.uk
Quiet spot
Eltham Palace
Not as splendid as Hampton - only the medieval great hall remains, but if it's Henry you are interested in, this is where he grew up. The Art Deco house built by the Courtauld family on the same site is also open.
www.elthampalace.org.uk
Honeypot
Chatsworth
The Devonshires' great 17th-century pile has been carefully developed as an all-round family attraction – lovely, but extremely busy, especially at weekends.
www.chatsworth.org
Quiet spot
Hardwick Hall
Just the other side of the A1 from Chatsworth, this National Trust house was built 100 years earlier by the prominent Elizabethan courtier Bess of Hardwick. It is one of the most important country houses in England, but visitor numbers are a quarter of those at Chatsworth.
www.nationaltrust.org.uk
Honeypot
National Gallery, London
Free admission can come at a cost – sometimes the more popular galleries lose all sense of intimacy and are rarely peaceful.
www.nationalgallery.org.uk
Quiet spot
Wallace Collection, London
The National Gallery doesn't have a monopoly on great old master paintings in London. In Manchester Square, the Wallace Collection has 25 galleries stuffed with works by Titian, Rubens, Rembrandt, Hals, Velázquez, Poussin, Canaletto, Fragonard, Boucher and Gainsborough, among others. It's in a historic town house, it's always quiet and, amazingly enough,
there is no admission charge, either.
www.wallacecollection.org

France

Honeypot
The Musée d'Orsay
The museum houses more French 19th-century and Impressionist paintings than any other. But it's nearly always besieged by school groups and tourists.
www.musee-orsay.fr
Quiet spot
Musée Marmottan
For a superb and comprehensive collection of Monet paintings – far more of them than in the Orsay and generally free from crowds – head out to this town house museum near the Bois de Boulogne.
www.marmottan.com
Honeypot
Versailles
About five million visitors a year flood out of Paris for the day trip to the Palace of Versailles. You wouldn't want to miss it – but you should go there off season.
www.chateauversailles.fr
Quiet spot
Fontainebleau
Barely half a million come to Fontainebleau, a similar distance from Paris and architecturally far more interesting – a medieval fortress converted into a sumptuous hunting lodge by Francois I, beautified again by Napoleon, and finally by Napoleon III. France's only fully furnished royal palace.
www.musee-chateau-fontainebleau.fr
Honeypot
Château de Chambord, Loire
The most famous of the Loire châteaux and, with Chenonceau, one of the compulsory stops for the many, many coach parties that tour the region.
www.chambord.org
Quiet spot: Château de Chaumont, Loire
Pre-dates Chambord by 100 years and has more interesting interiors, and a far more picturesque location on a bluff overlooking the river.
www.domaine-chaumont.fr

Italy

Honeypot St Mark's Basilica, Venice
So dense were the crowds last time I visited that the attendants wouldn't allow us to stop and look at the 12th-century marble floor and wall mosaics properly – we had to keep shuffling around to keep the queue moving.
www.basilicasanmarco.it
Quiet spot
Torcello Cathedral
St Mark's glittering mosaics are equalled by the 12th-century Last Judgment in the cathedral on the now virtually deserted island of Torcello, half an hour by vaporetto across the lagoon from Venice.
No official website
Honeypot
Pompeii
An extraordinary place and one of the greatest insights into Roman life anywhere. True, the site is so big that you can easily escape the crowds, but the central areas get extremely busy.
www.pompeiisites.org
Quiet spot
Herculaneum
Far fewer tourists bother to stop at nearby Herculaneum – destroyed in the same eruption as Pompeii in 79AD. They are missing a great site, in many ways just as evocative as its more famous neighbour.
Website as above
Honeypot
Vatican Museums, Rome
There is almost always a long queue outside the entrance to the museums and you usually have to queue again for the Raphael Stanze and the Sistine Chapel.
http://mv.vatican.va
Quiet spot
Villa Borghese
I'm cheating a little here – one of the reasons the Borghese doesn't suffer from crowds is that you have to book a timed admission. But once you are in you can view the great collection of old masters and sculptures (notably Canova) in peace and calm.
www.galleriaborghese.it

Spain

Honeypot
Prado
With seminal works by Velázquez, Goya, Titian, Bosch and Van de Weyden among others, the superb Spanish royal collection draws huge crowds – especially at weekends.
www.museodelprado.es
Quiet spot
Thyssen
Just across the road, the Museo Thyssen is much quieter and has an extraordinarily rich collection, with key European works from the 13th century to the 20th.
www.museothyssen.org

Turkey

Honeypot
Ephesus
This remarkable Hellenistic/Roman site, adorned by the spectacular reconstructed facade of the Library of Celsus (c AD 125), heaves with day-trippers from coastal resorts up to three hours away.
No official website
Quiet spot
Aphrodisias
More beautiful and more spectacular than Ephesus, with extensive remains and a very impressive stadium (the best-preserved and biggest of its type). It's about three hours inland from Ephesus but far fewer visitors.
No official website

New York

Honey pot
MoMA
The recently revamped Museum of Modern Art is very impressive, but in my experience it doesn't seem to absorb its many visitors very comfortably during the frequent busy times.
www.moma.org
Quiet spot
Solomon R Guggenheim Museum
Frank Lloyd Wright's radical building houses Guggenheim's Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and modern art collection – a great gallery, and visitor numbers are a third of those at MoMA.
www.guggenheim.org