Amsterdam Museums

The names Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Anne Frank are synonymous with Amsterdam, so it’s no surprise that some of the world’s best museums are located here. In addition to a walk along the beautiful canals and a peek into the seamy Red Light District, time spent in the museums of Amsterdam will reveal much about this exciting Dutch city. But don’t stop at these five. Between the Rembrandthuis, the Amsterdams Historisch Museum the Hermitage Amsterdam and the Joods Historisch Museum, there are enough museums to last your whole visit.

Our first three museums, Amsterdam’s most important and most popular, are located on the Museumplein (Museum Square), created in the 19th century on the site of the World Exposition. This is where you’ll find the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum and the Stedelijk Museum, as well as Bols Cocktail & Genever Experience, Coster Diamonds and the Concertgebouw

Rijksmuseum

Inside the walls of this 1885 P.J.H. Cuypers’s Gothic Revival building is the largest collection of classical Dutch art on the planet. Here at the Rijksmuseum you can travel back to a time when the world’s greatest painters came from the Netherlands. There’s also Delftware and dollhouses to complete your journey back in time. A painfully short list of highlights: The Night Watch, The Sampling Officials, The Jewish Bride and The Anatomical Lesson of Dr. Deyman by Rembrandt. The Milkmaid, The Love Letter, Woman in Blue Reading a Letter and The Little Street by Vermeer. Portrait of a Young Couple, The Company of Reynier Real, The Jolly Drinker and Portrait of Lucas De Clercq by Hals. And last but not least, The Feast of Saint Nicholas, The Drunken Pair, The Toilet and other scenes of revelry by Jan Steen. As the Rijksmuseum and the Museumplein are in such a central Amsterdam location, there are plenty of hotels nearby.

Van Gogh Museum

The first thing that strikes you about the Van Gogh Museum is that it’s housed in a most modern building, designed by architect Gerrit Rietveld. But once you start gazing upon the work inside, you’ll forget all about the building. This is the largest collection of Van Gogh’s work in the world, and you’ll be surprised when you see how many of the paintings you’re already familiar with. You’ll also be surprised at how completely reproductions and prints fail to convey the power of the originals. Here you’ll follow the artist’s life, from his time in the Netherlands (The Potato Eaters) to his time in the south of France (Bedroom in Arles and Sunflowers) and to his last days in Auvers (Wheatfield with Crows). The museum also features many of his sketches, as well as work by his contemporaries in the Impressionist and post-Impressionist movements like Monet and Gauguin.

Stedelijk Museum

Van Gogh makes the perfect transition from the Old Masters to the modern art found in the 1874 Stedelijk Museum, which rounds out the Museumplein. Its vast collection of modern and contemporary art includes 90,000 objects of art in many different formats. The classic facade of the building gives no indication that the museum has been collecting thought-provoking cutting edge art since 1909. Her you’ll find The Beanery by Edward Kienholz, along with the work of Malevich, Bauhaus and De Stijl. The Stedelijk’s collection rivals the more famous collections of the Centre Pompidou and MoMA, and the museum also focuses on education.

Anne Frank House

Leaving the Museumplein and the world of art, we enter a whole different world – a small world hidden in an attic behind a moveable bookcase. The world of Anne Frank. Set blocks away from the other museums, overlooking the quiet Prinsengracht Canal is the Anne Frank House. This is where Anne, a young Jewish girl fleeing from Nazi Germany, hid with her family and several others until their discovery and murder in a concentration camp. The museum now serves as to highlight all forms of persecution and discrimination. After being saved from the wrecking ball in 1955, the museum opened in 1960, after many readers of Anne’s diary starting arriving to be shown around the house by the tenants. After a 1999 renovation, the museum was reopened by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, and now the house is visited by over a million guests per year. There are many great hotels near the museum as well.

Tropenmuseum

Hearkening back to a time with the Netherlands possessed colonies all around the world, the Tropenmuseum (Museum of the Tropics) is an anthropological museum that has been exhibiting objects from the colonies and other tropical cultures since 1864. One of Amsterdam’s largest museums the Tropenmuseum boasts 175,000 pieces, 155,000 photographs and 10,000 drawings, paintings, and documents. Collections come from Southeast Asia, South Asia, West Asia & North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. There’s also a theatrical collection featuring 5,500 musical instruments and many masks and puppets. And you won’t want to miss the mind-boggling collection of 21,000 textile artifacts, mostly from Indonesia. Stepping outside the door, you return to modern Amsterdam and the many modern hotels found near the museum.