What cities have both great museums and great hiking?

Berlin has super museums, some of the best. And lots of things to do besides. I'm not a hiker but I love just walking around the neighborhoods of the large cities. I also enjoyed very much a walking tour to Potsdam, which ended up being about 4 hours of walking (not all at one time though). Strolling along the river, especially on a weekend when there are outdoor markets. Great place to spend at least 4-5 days.

My second choice would be Budapest, not necessarily for the museums, which there are, but everything else there is to see and it's a great city for walking. I spent several hours strolling in the city park one day and walking around the castle district on the Buda side on another day. There are some hiking trails on Margaret Island but I never got there. I spent 6 days there and could have stayed longer, and would love to go back for more.

It's hard for me to think of any city I've been to that has great museums that doesn't also have great opportunities for walking, hiking, or wandering on foot. Paris, Florence, Amsterdam, Stockholm, and Oslo are the ones that come most immediately to mind, but I can't really rule out any good museum city.

You're right to recognize that places with good hiking opportunities aren't always the places that have the best museums. So if I were looking for a place that offered both great museums and great walking, I'd start by looking for places with great museums, and then see whether the walking you would do there is the kind of walking you enjoy.

Dresden
The city has several unique world-class museums, like the Green Vault(s), the armoury, the Turkish Chamber, the Cabinet of Mathematical and Physical Instruments or the Porcelain Collection, plus the Old and New Masters, the Military Museum, the slightly strange Hygiene Museum, or the Transport Museum.
In terms of hiking Dresden is just 30-40min away from Saxon Switzerland, Central Europes most picturesque mountains. They offer some of the best and spectacular hikes you can imagine. To give you an idea, here is a site with more than 500 hikes in the area.
Closer to the city, and also good for a few hikes, are the vineyards of suburbs like Pillnitz or Radebeul.

Vienna has world class museums as well as the Wienerwald with an extensive hiking trail system. Also Wachau Valley is nearby with lovely walking trails. A visit to nearby Schneeberg or Raxalpe would give a taste of the Alps.

Vienna was the first city that came to my mind for all of the reasons Emily lists. Munich would be a second idea with its wonderful art and science museums. You can walk for hours in the Englishergarten or hike in the nearby Alps.

I also thought first of Vienna, with its lovely parks. Add Salzburg and a visit to its outdoor museum and a day trip to Berchtengaden.

Lots of good walking in all of these big museum cities ...
London
Paris
Amsterdam
Berlin
Munich
Vienna
Venice
Rome
Barcelona
Madrid

When I hear hiking I think remote nature - by definition away from the city and unlikely to have great museums.

If you mean cities that are great for walking and have nature in them as well as arts, may I suggest Barcelona? The art and museums there are excellent, the city is good for walking and also features a beach with walking paths and Montjuic, which features a large park going up the side of a hill with great walking trails up and down. Also, Montserrat is close by - under and hour by train and has excellent hiking.

I second Berlin. World-class museums (check out the Museumsinsel), and lots of green within the city or nearby: Tiergarten, Grunewald, Wannsee, Spreewald, Havel river (a newly renaturated riverbed).

Remember that West Berlin was locked in for a number of decades. People living there had to find recreation and outdoor activities within their city limits, so it's all within a relatively small space.

Remote loneliness however and big city obviously are mutually exclusive, but I understand that that's not necessarily what you are looking for - ?

Turin/Torino has great museums and great strolling - lots of it under beautiful arcades. We didn't get a chance to take any day trips into the mountains so I can't offer any first hand information about hiking. In addition, the food and wine are outstanding. We were there in 2014 - took the train from Avignon.

https://www.lonelyplanet.com/italy/liguria-piedmont-and-valle-daosta/turin

While I agree that the museums I saw in Switzerland weren't the most memorable part of the visit, Lausanne does have the unique and wonderful Museum of Outsider Art. I also enjoyed the Olympic Museum there. I was a bit disappointed in the Museum of Transport in Luzern, particularly given the price tag (30 CHF full price, and still 15 CHF even with the Swiss Museum Pass!). I didn't get to Basel, which seems to have several interesting museums.

I like the places on David in Brisbane's list, as well as Budapest and Dresden that others suggested. I'll just emphasize that in Madrid, I enjoyed walking around various neighborhoods. La Latina (in Rick's book) is Bangladeshi and hipster, Chueca (not in Rick's book) is gay, and Salamanca (not in Rick's book) purrs with wealth. And there's the Parque Retiro (small developed park) and the Casa del Campo (very large and more "wild" park). All of these are not too far from the city center, and are therefore a nice break from the world-class museums. I often see Madrid characterized as only of interest for its museums, but I found it interesting as a big city, well worth "hiking around." All of the others are wonderful too, but I think Madrid doesn't get the "love" it deserves as a city, while all the others do.

I'm curious what you saw in Marseille and Malaga. I went to the Picasso Museum in Malaga and several small museums in Marseille, but I don't think of either one as a "museum destination"; certainly not at the level of Lyon or London.

Nice has quite a lot of nice museums. It's a walkable city, but you can hop on a train and get to places like Cap Ferrat and Cap d'Antibes, where you can take ocean-side walks.

But I agree with the comment that the easiest way to tackle this is to choose a city with a bunch of museums you're interested in, and then verify that there are adequate hiking options in the vicinity.

Not in Europe, but Seattle meets the description!

Lola, I think you are being too generous to our museums.

;-)

From another thread, I was reminded of Naples. The Archeology Museum is one of my favorites anywhere, and the Capella Sansevero is also unforgettable. And, if you like urban exploring, you'll be in heaven!

Thanks for all your comments so far, very valuable! Many things to reply to:

• I was hoping someone would speak up for Swiss museums, thanks Harold. If others have good things to say about them, please do.
• I take to heart the general advice about starting with museums and then looking for the hiking—that makes sense given my early infatuation with Swiss organized transport not being enough of an incentive (so far).
• I appreciate the votes in favor of Budapest and Vienna, since I’m still a little scared of diving into Berlin and Dresden. I will take another look at them all.
• I agree that Madrid and Nice have plenty more appeals than what some guidebooks emphasize. They are a real kick to wander through.
• Seattle and Malaga and Marseilles museums all deserve dedicated attention (plus other tourable buildings in each town) — The modern and asian and library et cetera in Seattle, the Picasso and Thyssen and Roman and music and Alcazar et cetera in Malaga, and the redone archaeological and Jewish and modern and history and many more in Marseilles, including of course the big churches (Malaga’s too) Each is recognizing previously under-accounted influences in their displays. Turin also needs to get onto my radar again along with other northern and border cities in Italy like Trieste. Maybe an idea like Budapest-Vienna-Trieste is starting to percolate…

"I’m still a little scared of diving into Berlin and Dresden."

What about them scares you? If you can handle Marseille and London, you won't find anything difficult about these places. If it's the language barrier, be assured that getting around without speaking German is no problem. And as a further bonus, Berlin is one of the least expensive large cities. You'll certainly never run out of things to do there.

Berlin has nice parks, but hardly spectacular scenery. I'd suggest Innsbruck as an additional possibility.

Trieste? Why not Ljubljana? If you want to do the Coast, there are much better choices.

Edinburgh has good museums and you can hike Arthur's Seat for a great view of the city.

Berlin has nice parks, but hardly spectacular scenery.

I don't think you will find a city that has museums and scenery at an equally spectacular level. I certainly don't see Innsbruck competing with Berlin in terms of museums.

And since the OP explicitly asked for world-class exhibitions plus foot pursuits that could be at the level of "beachcombing or canal-bordering or back lane losing-one's-way", my impression was that the museums are a clear priority.

I’m still a little scared of diving into Berlin and Dresden

Like Harold, I'd like to ask: What scares you? Berlin is large, sure, but it's certainly not more scary than London, Marseilles, or Malaga. And Dresden appears almost quaint in comparison to those cities.

What I'm scared of is my own ability to maintain my comportment in those places.

I have one surviving uncle who sometimes jokes that he's famous because he appears in Life magazine--
but he's hard to recognize in that photo because at the time of the liberation of the camp he weighed 40 kilos,
and he's laying on a wooden bunk with a lot of other shaved and naked inmates. He is the only relative that is still here to joke,
but I can read the names of the rest of my relatives in the books or computer terminals of the relevant museums
and archives in Paris and Lyon, and have had the shock of doing so. This uncle spent two years after the concentration camp in a DP camp in Wuerzburg, and thinks it would be great for me to see the castle and other sights there today, but I'm not so eager.

A young acquaintance with a beautiful voice once treated me to a personal performance of some Schubert lieder and asked afterwards how I can possibly keep such a troubled attitude toward German culture and people. It doesn't take much, I would say.

If you're thinking of spending two weeks in Switzerland, then you can cover more than the average tourist who only has time to prioritize a few days of natural splendors and probably rightly skips the big cities. I don't think that Rick gives any Swiss museum 3 stars (and he doesn't cover Geneva at all) but there are several that he gives 2 stars. Rick's always particularly liked the Paul Klee museum in Bern and I have fond memories of the small folk history museums around Appenzell. With about 500 museums covered, including popular sights like the Chateau de Chillon and cheese and chocolate factories, the pass lets you enjoy pretty much all that Switzerland offers without worrying whether it's worth an admission fee.

@avirosemail: I am very sorry to hear that. Yes, of course, that changes things, and naturally you would feel different about these cities than about any city you would go to only for sightseeing.

We had old friends who, for many years, had said they would never set foot on German ground again. Eventually, they did and came to visit us. But that of course is a very personal decision to make. Obviously, it's not an easy and lighthearted one and involves more than simply walking into a travel agency and booking a flight.