A metro station is probably one of the last places you’d expect to find great art and breathtaking interiors. However, there are a few stations that hide exceptional design and art installations under city streets around the world. These are now on my bucket list of places to travel someday.

1. Toledo Metro Station – Naples, Italy A metro station is probably one of the last places you’d expect to find great art and breathtaking interiors. However, there are a few stations that hide exceptional design and art installations under city streets around the world. Forget dirty, badly lit platforms painted in dull colours, because we’ve sought out some of the world’s coolest subway and metro stations.

2. Radhuset Station – Stockholm, Sweden The metro system in the Scandinavian capital is arguably the coolest in the world. Visiting any of Stockholm’s stations, like Rådhuset (pictured) is like going to an art gallery and normally there are even guided tours that take you round the most remarkable stops.

3. Avtovo Metro Station – St. Petersburg, Russia Moscow’s metro system, opened in 1935, is a collection of incredibly ornate stations that look much more like regal palaces or cathedrals rather than commuter hubs. Most, like Komsomolskaya, were built during Stalin’s reign and are meant to represent the wealth and power of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party.

4. Kievskaya, Mayakovskaya and Park Pobedy Stations – Moscow, Russia

5. Bund Sightseeing Tunnel – Shanghai, China

6. Arts Et Metiers Station – Paris, France An ode to steampunk and French novelist Jules Verne, the platform tunnel at Arts et Métiers is covered in copper cladding, complete with portholes and exposed bolts. Inspired by the science fiction novels of the early 20th century, it surely feels like the submarine Nautilus from one of Verne’s most famous worksTwenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

7. Tilework in Szent Gellert Square – Budapest, Hungary Built in honour of the 1998 World Expo, this station still features art installations by four Portuguese artists. Its combination of bright, bold and in-your-face colours and Brutalist architecture is really rather unusual.

8. University of Naples Subway Station – Italy

9. Formosa Boulevard Station – Kaohsiung, Taiwan The kaleidoscope-like glass ceiling at the Formosa Boulevard station is said to be the largest glass work in the world. Consisting of 4,500 glass panels, it’s made by Italian designer Narcissus Quagliata, who called it Wind, Fire and Time.

10. Kungstradgarden Metro Station – Stockholm, Sweden

11. City Hall Station – New York, NY

13. T-Centralen Station – Stockholm, Sweden Although pretty much all of the stations on Tashkent's metro system have beautiful and unique interiors, this one, named after a famous poet, is considered to be the most spectacular. The highlight in this station, located on the Oʻzbekiston Line, is the magnificent ceiling, but travellers should also pay attention to the ceramic murals depicting scenes from the poet's most well-known works

14. Olaias Station – Lisbon, Portugal

15. Stadion Station – Stockholm, Sweden Painted sky-blue with rainbow patterns all over, including a massive rainbow arch stretching across the tunnel connecting two platforms, Stadion station was decorated to commemorate the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. The rainbow represents the colours in the Olympic rings.

16. Slavyansky Bulvar Station – Moscow, Russia