National Gallery - Permanent Collection

Located on Trafalgar Square in the shadow of Nelson's Column, The National Gallery houses one of the greatest collections of European paintings in the world with a variety of temporary exhibitions through the year. Masterpieces on permanent display include one of Vincent Van Gogh's four paintings of sunflowers dating from August and September 1888, John Constable's iconic Suffolk scene The Hay Wain, Georges Seurat large scale painting Bathers At Asnieres, Botticelli's Venus And Mars, Leonardo da Vinci's The Virgin Of The Rocks, the central panel of an elaborate sculpted altar, and JMW Turner's The Fighting Temeraire, depicting the gun ship involved in the Battle of Trafalgar, which was voted the Greatest Painting In Britain by the public in a poll held by the National Gallery and the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. Children will be enthralled by a range of special events throughout the year and can design and print their own route through the gallery using touch screen terminals in the high-tech Sainsbury wing. The special exhibition this spring is Picasso: Challenging The Past, a selection of around 60 works which reflect the artist's responses to luminaries including Cezanne, Delacroix, Ingres, Manet and Rembrandt.

• Website: www.nationalgallery.org.uk