Madrid
The city may not sleep at the best of times but the night of 19 September has been designated the city’s fourth Noche en Blanco (esmadrid.com) — Spanish for ‘sleepless night’. Hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets for a programme of outdoor shows and concerts. More than 250 organisations, from the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza (it’s a great opportunity to catch the current Matisse show, which ends the following day) to the Bernabeu Stadium, will remain open till 7am on Sunday morning.
Vienna
Austria also marks the coming winter with the ORF Long Night of Museums (langenacht2.orf.at) on 3 October, when more than 600 museums across the country, including 90 in Vienna, will be open from 6pm till 1am. A single £12 ticket gains access to all of them, as well as use of a bus that shuttles between. Otherwise just stick to the excellent MuseumsQuartier, one of the largest complexes of cultural institutions in the world, which is also home to nine beautifully designed restaurants.
Paris
The same weekend, Paris promises to be en fête with the eighth edition of its Nuit Blanche (nuitblanche.paris.fr). As its mayor Bertrand Delanoë wrote of last year’s event, ‘For one sleepless night, dreams are played out on the streets as the city reveals itself from an entirely new perspective.’ In other words, the city becomes a setting for all sorts of happenings, performances and film screenings during which images are projected on to buildings.
Amsterdam
It’s a trend that’s spread to Amsterdam too. On 7 November, more than 40 of its greatest museums will stay open till 2am for its Museumnacht, for which a programme of complementary events, concerts and performances is also promised. From next month, more details will be posted on n8.nl/2009.
Singapore
This city runs the only Grand Prix in the F1 calendar to take place after dark (27 September). If you can’t get a ticket, there’ll be a live screening at Fullerton Hotel (fullertonhotel.com), located on the hairpin that is Turn 13 of the 5km route that winds through the city state’s Marina Bay area, so the smell of burning rubber will be the real thing.
Johannesburg
Of course it’s south of the equator, so technically spring not autumn, but even with the promise of shorter nights in prospect, Camp Jabulani (campjabulani.com), 480km from Johannesburg, is hoping to maximise the amount of time its guests can spend communing with nature by launching a programme of nocturnal safaris on elephant back — a first for South African tourism, or so they claim.
