The winner of the prestigious Art Fund Museum of the Year is due to be announced next month, with the shortlist of five offering up very different experiences.

The director of last year’s winner, the V&A Museum, Tristram Hunt has given the Telegraph a run-through of the finalists and what you can expect in each one.

If you’ve recently purchased gold picture frames in London, you may want to head to the quirky Sir John Soane’s Museum. Last year saw many of the interior spaces in the architect’s former home restored to how they would have looked in his time, and there’s plenty to see on the walls as well as dotted throughout the Georgian house.

A collection of Hogarth paintings is among the highlights, as well as the sarcophagus of an Egyptian king which is housed in the crypt.

If your artistic tastes lean more towards the modern, then a trip to the Tate Modern will never fail to offer up inspiration. If you haven’t been since it moved into its new ten-storey home last June, it’s well worth a trip to appreciate the unusual and fascinating exhibits in their new space.

The other museums on the shortlist are away from London, with the National Heritage Centre for Horseracing and Sporting Art in Newmarket, The Hepworth Wakefield in West Yorkshire, and Birmingham’s Lapworth Museum of Geology rounding off the nominees.

The latter underwent a £2.7 million refurbishment recently, reopening its doors in June last year, to showcase its vast collections of fossils, minerals and rocks.

If you’d like inspiration from further afield, take the opportunity to travel to Venice for its Art Biennale, which is the longest-running art festival in the world.