When visiting a new city, you want to get a tour of it. Even if you're seeing the most famous works of art in the world, you may not know the history and context that gives that art such greatness. So you always, always, want to get a tour if you can. Especially for museums.
My favorite tour that I've been on was a walking tour through the Vatican in Rome, and it wasn't just because we had the most attractive tour guide possible. We were given context and understanding and stories for everything we saw. Da Vinci, Michelangelo, various popes, and all those cool cats had real lives and we were able to learn both their significance and the significance of their art both to them and the world they lived in.
Most major cities offer "free" walking tours. If you're traveling on a budget, these are ideal, 'cause as they will tell you, you give as much as you think the tour is worth. If you know your history pretty well, a lot of the tour may not be worth much. I, for one, found that the free walking tour in London wasn't all that impressive, but the one in Paris was great.
I also went on an inexpensive walking tour in Brussels, Belgium, which was my favorite tour on my last trip to Europe. Since we were a group of students, we paid about as much as we would have tipped on a free tour anyway, and the tour was fantastic, taking us all around the city and telling us not only the history of politics and such, but also of the beer, chocolate, and waffles that the city is so known for.
Take a tour, 'cause there's a good chance that you can cheat a city out of what it's due by being ignorant of what's standing in front of you.
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