Amsterdams Historisch Museum (Amsterdam Historical Museum)

Description:

• For a better understanding of everything you see while exploring the city on your own, a visit to this brilliantly executed museum is more than worthwhile. Its location, the restored 17th-century former Burger Weeshuis (City Orphanage), is already notable. Gallery by gallery, century by century, you learn how a small fishing village founded around 1200 became a major sea power and trading center. The focus is on the city's 17th-century Golden Age, when Amsterdam was the world's wealthiest city, and some of the most interesting exhibits are of the trades that made it rich. You can also view famous paintings by the Dutch Old Masters in context.

  There are plenty of hands-on exhibits and some interesting video displays. A scale model from around 1677 shows a then-new Stadhuis (Town Hall) on the Dam, now the Royal Palace. It's displayed without some outer walls and the roof to allow a bird's-eye look inside, which makes a later visit to the palace that much more enjoyable. One small room is given over to local hero Jan Carel Josephus van Speyk, a Dutch naval officer during the 1830 rebellion by Belgium against Dutch rule. Belgian patriots who aimed to commandeer his warship at Antwerp didn't account for van Speyk's "Don't give up the ship" disposition. He dropped his lit cigar into the gunpowder magazine, blowing up the vessel, the rebel boarders -- and him.

  Pop into Café 't Mandje, a typical, if tiny, Amsterdam neighborhood bar. Sadly, you can't order a beer or a jenever from this museum exhibit. For real-life alimentation, visit the museum's David & Goliath restaurant, which serves well-prepared Dutch standards, like broodjes, uitsmijters, and solid meat-and-potatoes hot meals. It has a high-beamed ceiling and a circa-1650 wooden sculpture of David and Goliath that's 5m (16 ft.) high, and salvaged from a local amusement garden that was a feature of Amsterdam's landscape for nearly 250 years until 1862. In summer, dine outdoors under the shade of courtyard trees.

  When you leave the museum, cut through the Schuttersgalerij (Civic Guards Gallery), a narrow, two-story sky-lit passageway that leads to the Begijnhof. This walkway's bedecked with 15 enormous 17th-century paintings of the Amsterdam Civic Guards. Admission is free, and hours are the same as for the museum.

• © Frommer's 2012

Awards:

Frommer's

•  Highly Recommended 2010
•  Very Highly Recommended 2009