Amsterdam – A Unique Travel Destination
Will you be traveling to Amsterdam, Netherlands anytime soon? If so, you likely plan on at least doing a few tourist activities while you are there.
Amsterdam is an exciting and rather unique travel destination because it is a place that appeals to a wide variety of travelers. The beautiful city of Amsterdam is world-renowned for its museums, as it homes some of the most famous ones in the world.
Amsterdam is known throughout the world for its extraordinary art and informational exhibitions of all sorts. No wonder millions of tourists from all over the world visit Amsterdam each year, and many people keep on coming back as they can’t seem to get enough of the Dutch capital. If you like culture and history then, the following are Amsterdam Museums that cross over the line of ordinary. Hopefully, you will enjoy visiting them.
If art is your thing, head to the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, otherwise known as the National Museum, it is the largest museum in the Netherlands. It is internationally renowned for its exhibitions as well as its permanent collection. This is a place to be if you need to know Amsterdam and understand Dutch culture. A visit to this museum is more engaging than any book, website, or tour guide. The museum chronicles Dutch history, walking visitors through the Eighty Years’ War, Dutch colonialism, and World War II resistance and liberation. The museum holds a collection of a million objects, about 8,000 of which are on display at any given time.
For a more modest and more intimate look into history visit the Anne Frank house. The Anne Frank House museum is located in the actual building in which Anne Frank hid during the 2nd world war. In the museum, there are extracts from Anne Frank’s diary, historical documents, pictures and objects that endured through the years. The original diary is also in this museum along with information about what the family experienced during this time. If you are visiting Amsterdam with your children, then be sure to take them to the Anne Frank house as it is an integral part of world history.
Art lovers, on the other hand, must visit the Van Gogh museum. Vincent van Gogh is one of the most famous Dutch painters of all time. This museum contains the most extensive collection of Van Gogh’s paintings and drawings in the world. His works are organized chronologically so as you move through the museum, it is as close to an intimate encounter with the artist that is possible. There are over two hundred paintings at the Van Gogh Museum as well as nearly six hundred drawings and a large selection of personal artifacts. The vast collection is further broken down into five main periods representing where he was in life at each time.
After a trip to the arts and culture museum, visitors to Amsterdam can also treat themselves to some of the other unusual museums like the Sex Museum. Amsterdam’s homage to sex ranks it the world’s oldest sex museum. The museum’s collections cover the history of sex, Cleopatra’s sexual habits, and sexual repression during the Middle Ages.
The museum’s collection includes a plaster Venus and a full-size wax Mata Hari in addition to erotic pictures, paintings, and sound recordings.
Amsterdam is a great city to be! Make Amsterdam your next vacation destination. Most of Amsterdam’s museums are also open daily, making any time of year good for a visit.
What are the best museums in Amsterdam to visit? Here is your go-to museum list
Amsterdam is home to about 90 museums and most of them are of great quality. But which museums in Amsterdam are worth visiting? If you are a first-time visitor, you should head to the most famous museums Amsterdam has to offer. This is the Anne Frank museum, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and the Van Gogh museum Amsterdam. It is very easy in Amsterdam to get museum tickets. You simply book them online and then you can avoid the long queues.
- Anne Frank Huis Amsterdam: Every year around a million people visit this museum. This museum is the former house, or better said hiding place, where the Jewish girl Anne Frank lived with her family for two years during World War II. She hid from the Nazi’s here and wrote in her diary every day. Her diary is a bestselling book now. Go early to this museum.
- Rijksmuseum Amsterdam is one of the most famous museums in Amsterdam. Your visit to Amstedam is not complete without visiting the Rijksmuseum. Here you can find paintings of Dutch artists like Vermeer, Rembrandt, Jan Steen and Frans Hals. The famous Night Watch painted by Rembrandt also hangs here and is very impressive
- Van Gogh museum is also one of the best art museums in Amsterdam. This is the most popular museum. Of all the Amsterdam museums, the Van Gogh museum owns the most paintings of Van Gogh himself. The museum also exhibits pieces of Van Gogh his contemporaries Monet and Gauguin.
- Another museum that is on the list of Amsterdam its most popular museums is the Stedelijk museum Amsterdam. This is a museum for modern and contemporary art. Here you can find masterpieces from Piet Mondriaan, Lucebert and other expressionists.
Museums in Amsterdam that you can enter for free
Did you know that there are even free museums in Amsterdam? Not all the museums and galleries in Amsterdam are as expensive as the Rijksmuseum. The Schuttersgalerij for instance is for free. Here you can see a small gallery filled with portraits of the Dutch elite. You can also go to the Amsterdam City Archives for free. This museum features impressive treasures collected from the archives.
Amsterdam museums that are family-friendly
Amsterdam is just a small town, but still packed with many museums that are kids-proof. Go to the Nemo Science Museum or to the Tropenmuseum. The kids will enjoy all the child-friendly exhibitions. Another museum in Amsterdam that is very child-friendly is the National Maritime Museum.
