Amsterdam's Best Museums

Our Local Expert Says:

Quirkiest Church

Description:

During the Reformation, Catholics weren't allowed to openly practice their religion, so a hidden church in the attic of a house was established. Now known as "Our Lord in the Attic" Museum, it is the second oldest museum in Amsterdam. Guided tours are available. Every first Sunday of the month between October and April, you can join in an "attic celebration." The museum is open 10:00 to 17:00 Monday through Saturday, and 13:00 to 17:00 on Sunday and public holidays. Adults cost €8.00 and children ages 6 to 18 cost €4.00.

- Jessica E. Lipowski, Amsterdam Local Expert

Our Local Expert Says:

Best Photography Museum

Description:

FOAM shines a new light on photography. Whether you want to study the exhibitions on your own or participate in designated hands-on workshops and other educational programs, FOAM offers something for everyone. Open daily from 10:00 to 18:00, with late hours until 21:00 on Thursdays and Fridays, admission is €8.50 for adults, €5.50 for students and seniors, and free for children under 12. A free-guided tour is available every Thursday at 19:30. On the first Thursday of the month, the museum offers the tour in Dutch Sign Language.

- Jessica E. Lipowski, Amsterdam Local Expert

Description:

Experience the life of world-renowned artist Rembrandt van Rijn by visiting his home and studio. See where he lived, gathered inspiration, produced his work and taught pupils. From paintings and drawings to etchings and copper plates, the museum owns almost all of his work and rotates the displays. Demonstrations of paint preparation and etchings, as well as children's activities, are offered daily. The museum is open from 10:00 to 17:00, charging €10 for adults and €3 for children ages 6 to 17. Tours are available upon request.

- Jessica E. Lipowski, Amsterdam Local Expert

Description:

Host to the world's largest collection of Vincent Van Gogh's artwork, this in one museum you cannot miss. Year round, you can view the permanent collection of his work, plus special exhibitions on display. On Friday evenings, stop by and enjoy some art, music and drinks. The museum also offers lectures on a collection or current exhibition every Sunday, except in July and August. Admission is €14 for adults and free for ages 17 and under. The museum is open from 10:00 to 18:00 daily and on Friday until 22:00.

- Jessica E. Lipowski, Amsterdam Local Expert

Our Local Expert Says:

The most extensive collection of Dutch artists in Amsterdam.

Description:

Architect Petrus Josephus Hubertus Cuypers (1827-1921), the grandfather of modern Dutch architecture, designed the brick museum in a monumental Dutch neo-Renaissance, gabled style. Cuypers, a Catholic, slipped in more than a dab of neo-Gothic, too, causing the country's thoroughly Protestant King William III to scorn "that cathedral." The building opened in 1885 to a less-than-enthusiastic public reception. Since then, much has been added to the building and the collection.

The Rijksmuseum contains the world's largest collection of paintings by the Dutch masters, including the most famous of all, a single work that all but defines the Golden Age. The painting is Rembrandt's The Shooting Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq and Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch, 1642, better known as The Night Watch . The scene it so dramatically depicts is surely alien to most of the people who flock to see it: gaily uniformed, but not exactly warrior-looking militiamen checking their weapons and accoutrements before moving out on patrol. Captain Cocq (once described as the stupidest man in the city, whose house on Singelgracht still stands), Lieutenant van Ruytenburch, the troopers, and observers (including...

Description:

This museum is located on the Hendrika Maria, a former commercial sailing ship built in 1914. On board, the visitor obtains information on the nature of this special lifestyle, living on a boat that never moves, which is so unique to Amsterdam. The deckhouse, where the shipper's family resided, is still in place, including the cupboard bed. The former cargo hold has now been converted into comfortable living space. Ship's models, photos and slides complete the tour. See website for photos, routes, visitor details and more.

Description:

In summer, you may have to wait an hour or more to get in, but you shouldn't miss seeing and experiencing this house. It's a typical Amsterdam canal house, with very steep interior stairs where eight people from three separate families lived together in silence for more than 2 years during World War II. The hiding place Otto Frank found for his family, the van Pels family, and Fritz Pfeffer kept them safe until, tragically, close to the end of the war, when it was raided by Nazi forces and its occupants were deported to concentration camps. It was in this house that Anne, whose ambition was to be a writer, kept her famous diary as a way to deal with both the boredom and her youthful array of thoughts, which had as much to do with personal relationships as with the war and the Nazi terror raging outside. Visiting the rooms in which she hid is a moving and eerily real experience.

During the war, the building was an office and warehouse, and its rooms are still as bare as they were when Anne's father returned, the only survivor of the eight onderduikers (divers, or hiders). Nothing has been changed, except that protective Plexiglas panels now protect the wall on which Anne pinned up photos...

Description:

Behind its faux-marble facade, this museum isn't as sleazy as you might expect, apart from one room covered with straight-up pornography. Otherwise, presentation tends toward the tongue-in-cheek, and the place seems to be fine with its half-million annual visitors. Exhibits include erotic prints and drawings, and trinkets like tobacco boxes decorated with naughty pictures. Teenage visitors seem to find the whole place vastly amusing, judging by the giggling fits at the showcases. Spare a thought for the models of early erotic photography -- slow film speeds in those days made for uncomfortably long posing times!