Museums in and around Amsterdam

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In my first year in Amsterdam, I bought the annual Museum Card for residents which allows entry to most museums in the Netherlands for a year for a reasonable fee. And as 2021-22 was the year of Covid lockdown, and outdoor activities were restricted, I visited a lot more museums than I would normally do. I enjoyed those visits as it was a good way to get to know more about the Netherlands, its history and culture.

I visited around 18 museums during the year, a lot focused on art but many on other subjects. Some were huge ones like the Rijksmuseum, while there were many smaller but interesting ones like the Grachten museum. Here are my experiences visiting them.


Museum Amstelkring (Our Lord in the Attic museum) (May 2022)

This was one of the smaller museums I visited in Amsterdam, which took about an hour or so to explore. Interestingly, this museum with a religion bent, was located right next to the Red Light District which was a bit of a shock to end up at while cycling there. Amsterdam has been a Protestant city for a long time, but given its trading focus, it has also always been open to all kinds of ideas, religions and beliefs. So when the Protestants grew in Amsterdam, some religious persecution began. Still Catholics were allowed to follow their religion peacefully, though in private. So they could not build public churches, but they could still pray to their god in private.

Our Lord in the Attic

So what some of the rich Catholics in the city did was build huge churches inside their canal houses! They would buy multiple adjacent houses, saw off floors within the building and create huge churches inside, hidden from public view. And Our Lord in the Attic was one of those remaining Catholic churches.

It was quite a creditable engineering feat, and lovely to see it. The owner had bought three neighbouring houses and constructed one church within them. It had everything a normal church would have, an organ, seats for the faithful to sit in and so on. It was impressive to see how the floor across two floors had been sawed off to create a huge indoor church - such loyalty and dedication towards one’s religion is saluteworthy. I also loved the views of the canals outside from inside the church.


Anne Frank House (April 2022)

The Anne Frank museum was one of the tough ones to visit. It is one of those museums that you need to book in advance, as it’s a tourist favourite, and the visiting slots get booked a long time in advance. Every time I tried, I would never find any evening or weekend slot available for the next few months. Also, at some level, I was trying to avoid visiting this museum as I expected it to be depressing (having read the book previously). Anyways after trying a few times, I was able to book a 1 hour slot on a weekday evening, and off I went.

The museum is in one of the canal houses in the canal district, and is always surrounded by crowds outside. At the allotted time, the visitors are allowed to walk in, and guided through the house, both the main one in front, and the annex behind, where Anne Frank hid from the Nazis for more than two years with her own family and another family.

The whole tour is around an hour, and takes you through where the family lived. The house had been stripped bare of its contents after the families had been found, and the museum has been kept like that only. When you emerge into the main hall, there are some displays from her diary.

I think for me, there were two thoughts that I had after the visit. One, how did 7 individuals live in such a small space for over two years. Though I guess that would not have been their major worry, survival was. Still it is humbling to see two families try to survive this way. And my second thought was, the museum was anything but depressing. I don’t know how they pulled it off. It felt quite uplifting as they celebrated Anne’s spirit rather than the tragedy of her life’s end.


De Nieuwe Kerk (The New Church) (April 2022)

This is one of the key churches of Amsterdam which is no longer a church given the gradual disappearance of religion from the Netherlands (the majority of the country now is atheist). The church has been converted into an exhibition hall now, and the day I went, there was a display of the winners of the ‘World Press Photo of the Year’ across the last few decades.

The church was quite pretty from the inside and the outside, though not a functioning church anymore. And the exhibition was informative to see. It was also interesting to note, a lot of previous winners had photographed scenes from wars, mostly of children. There is something about that that tugs the human heart.


FOAM Photography museum (Dec 2021)

This is a very small museum in the canal district. I went there one rainy winter day, and saw an exhibition by a Japanese photographer. I found all the photographs too abstract, I liked only one of them. But for people who like abstract work, the museum regularly changes its exhibition, so this could be fun.


Grachten museum (Museum of Canals) (June 2022)

This is a very small museum in one of the canal houses in Amsterdam. It tells the story of the building of the canals in Amsterdam and how it drove the city’s development. There was also a 45 mins multimedia show on how the canal houses were built. I enjoyed it. It was quite eye opening to learn that the houses are all standing on wooden foundations, with long wooden pillars, the bottom part of which are all immersed in water! I wonder how they will all sustain in the long term.


Hermitage museum + Amsterdam museum (May 2022)

The Hermitage is a museum in Amsterdam which used to work like a branch of the famous Moscow Hermitage museum. They would display paintings on loan from the main Hermitage museum. But by the time I visited it, the Russia-Ukraine war had started and the museum had become empty as all the Russian art had been returned. So there wasn’t a lot to see. In fact, the Milkmaid painting from the Rijksmuseum had been moved here and a few rooms were dedicated to analysing the painting in detail. It’s one of my favourite paintings, so I enjoyed learning all the details about it. But of course I missed out on the original Hermitage displays.

In the Hermitage gardens

In fact, the Amsterdam museum which was under renovation had been temporarily moved to the Hermitage building. It wasn’t very impressive though, I barely remember anything from it.

The Hermitage museum building is quite impressive though. It turns out I had visited its courtyard twice before, once to visit a local farmers’ market, and once to sit in a cafe with tulips around, to get some peace during a hectic King’s day.


Het Scheepvart Museum (The Maritime Museum) (May 2022)

Maritime musem

This was the national maritime museum of the Netherlands and I loved it. It’s a huge building on the river IJ, with a few boats floating on the water. The main building is magnificent and looks stunning especially during sunset. I first spent time in the main building, where the displays were mostly paintings about seafaring Netherlands, tapestries and some weapons used by sailors. They were quite beautiful.

Along it all was also a display of the history of the VOC (the Dutch East India company). I learnt a lot about Dutch history there. The Dutch were one of the first masters of the seas. But they fought against Spain, then against the UK and then France at different times in history. After all the wars, they finally lost control of the seas. (Also the alliances between the countries were changing so constantly, it was tough to keep track who sided with whom when). Also I realised that Amsterdam is still a port, and the access is through the North Sea canal. That was built after the North Sea access was lost due to building of the two dykes, the Afsluitdijk and Markerwaarddijk.

A scene at sea

After that, I checked out the royal barge as well as a replica boat showing how sailors would have gone on VOC voyages at that time. It was nice to get onto the ships and see what they would have carried, how much space there would have been, and so on. There was also a VR show on how Amsterdam would have looked then. That was quite a well made immersive video, I liked it.

I spent almost 2 hours in the museum and still managed to see only two of the sections. There were a few other exhibitions going on too which I didn’t get time to see. Overall, I enjoyed the museum and wanted to come back again with more time, but I never managed to do that.


Nemo Science museum (Oct 2021)

This was another of my favourite museums in town that I wanted to visit a second time and never did. The Nemo is a huge museum on the banks of the river IJ near the Centraal Station. The building has an interesting shape and is visible from afar. And the museum inside is a child’s dream. Actually, even an adult’s 😂.

It has five floors of exhibits showcasing real life experiments on how science works. Most of them engage the visitors, where they need to do something to see something happen. It was just so much fun. We had gone with some kids and had to keep our own enthusiasm in check so as not to forget (and lose track of) the kids 😂. I loved all the experiments I did and wish I had done more of these when I was an engineering student. So much of what I did then made sense now.

The rooftop restaurant there was gorgeous too, I went there a few times over the next few years. It gave a good overview of Amsterdam city. And there were events happening there all the time, like once we landed at a Pride concert. I wanted to visit the museum again but that never happened. Maybe I will go to the Science Museum in London sometime.


Oude Kerk (Old Church) (May 2022)

This was again one of the oldest and most important churches of Amsterdam but now it does not serve a religious function anymore. Like the New Church, this has also been converted into an exhibition hall and when I visited, there was an exhibition on display by a Brazilian artist linking religion with the exploitation of black people. The church looked really grand from the inside. It had some beautiful stained glass on the windows. I had seen many paintings of the church in the other museums in the Netherlands. But it looked so empty now, it had an eerie feeling. Maybe because I haven’t seen a lot of non-functioning churches like this before.


Rijksmuseum (Nov 2021, Apr 2022, Sep 2022, Apr 2023)

Tulips outside the Rijks

The Rijksmuseum is the National Museum of the Netherlands. It is a grand building, one of the most recognisable sights of Amsterdam, including a cycle path through the centre of the building. It was apparently built like a church. Outside it there are gardens where people come and paint in summer, skating rinks are set up in winter, tulip gardens in spring and many other events are held there. Its gardens are also where protests and other public events are held.

Cycling through the Rijks

Inside the museum are all the national treasures of the Netherlands. Apparently it owns a million different objects, of which it showcases only about 8000 at a time! I visited the Rijksmuseum three times, so as to see different parts of the museum leisurely. And then I went again for a Vermeer exhibition.

The Milkmaid

On my first visit, I spent an hour in one gallery, known as the ‘Gallery of Honour’. This gallery was where the best and most famous of the Rijks’s paintings were put on display. The showstopper there was the famous ‘Night Watch’ by Rembrandt, though my favourite was the ‘Milkmaid’ by Vermeer. There is something in the painting that the moment I saw it, I just stood there. Observing the milkmaid as she goes about her daily life. No photograph can do justice to the real thing. It was definitely a masterpiece. The rest of the paintings in that hall were still lifes, Dutch landscapes, and the daily lives of people. Most of them had a vivid interplay of light and shadow, which made them very captivating to stare at.

Children of the sea

On my second trip, I spent about two hours exploring the paintings from the 1600-1700s. Unsurprisingly, there were many paintings showcasing the colonial history of the country, with paintings from the lives of the people in the colonies often portrayed more positively than it actually was. Thankfully the Dutch have evolved a lot from there - all such paintings have notes next to it, accepting and highlighting the colonial past of the country, including some of the wrongs it did in the past. I was just happy they were not whitewashing their entire past - it is commendable for a country to accept the realities of its past and move on.

While watching the paintings, there is a lot I also learnt about Dutch art, Dutch history and their way of life. I learnt about the Hague school and style of art, and that a lot of the Dutch painters travelled to Italy to learn painting. Also, they were one of the pioneers of landscape paintings, still lifes and of depicting daily life of the common people, given the relatively less classist society of the Netherlands. I also noticed that Dutch medieval fashion was to have the white collars, which not a lot of other countries had. I also didn't know that Belgium had been a part of the Netherlands (when they were together called the Low Countries) and had split after the war with Spain.

I stopped by the Cuypers library, and what an impressive room that was. We weren't allowed to check out the individual books though, given how old and delicate they would be. I also liked some of the Dutch doll houses on display. They looked cute, the large houses with every detail recreated in miniature across rooms.

Dollhouse

On my third visit, I spent about 2 hours checking out the displays from the 1700-1800s. There was a room with Turkish paintings by Vanmour - they were all so different, and so much darker. I liked Koekkoek, one of the Romantic Dutch painters. His paintings were worth stopping for, as were Kruseman’s. In the 19th century, the number of landscapes increased and I liked them. I also liked some of Isaac Israel's impressionist works.

There were many rooms displaying material possessions of the colonial era, like silver and gold objects, exquisite furniture and so on. I didn't enjoy that section much except some colourful potteries of animals and birds. I don’t think I had finished exploring the whole of Rijksmuseum even after the third visit. But it was my last exploring the standard displays.

Vermeer's play with light

My last visit to the Rijksmuseum was to the Vermeer Exhibition. It showcased about 20 of his paintings from across the world. He also played a lot with light in all his paintings. I loved the ones of windows and women by the windows, always. He painted a lot of upholstery and carpets in detail, which I liked. And as usual, I liked his landscapes.


Van Gogh museum (Nov 2021)

I have been to the Van Gogh museum a few times earlier too, and somehow everytime I learn something new. I wrote an article about the last visit here. It’s a museum I recommend to everyone, even the ones who are not into art and paintings. There is something about knowing about Van Gogh, the person, and his history, which moves everyone who visits the museum.


Van Loon museum (June 2022)

This was another of the smaller Amsterdam museums where you can spend an hour or so wandering around. The Van Loon museum was a typical grand canal house, something all the rich and wealthy in Amsterdam possessed (or wanted to possess) which had been converted into a museum. This was the house of the Van Loon family, a grand house filled with valuable possessions from that era, from around the world.

From paintings by great masters to tapestries from the Middle East to exquisite furniture and so on. It was gorgeous, and fun to visit even though it was an ostentatious display of wealth. I also liked the garden behind the house - apparently a lot of canal houses have stunning gardens behind, all hidden from the general public. Behind the garden, in the outhouse, there was an exhibition of portraits made by the painter Adolf Pirsch - they were all quite stunning.



I also visited a few museums in other parts of the Netherlands while visiting those cities (or National Parks). I must say that overall, I preferred Amsterdam’s. The city is definitely the heart of the country, art wise and otherwise (though the rest of the country doesn’t always agree 😂).


Frans Hals museum (Haarlem) (September 2022)

Peasants returning home

When on a bike ride to Haarlem, we visited the Frans Hals museum which mostly housed paintings. For me, the highlights were some Heda Claesz and Jan Jansz van de Velde’s still life paintings. But overall I wasn’t blown away by any of the pieces. I think the museum was too small to be truly impressive.


Kroller-Muller Museum (Veluwe) (June 2022)

This museum is made up of the paintings owned by the Kroller-Muller family which were then donated to build this museum. And it is located in the middle of a national park, the Hoge Veluwe! Wow, what a location! When we visited it, we spent some time outside in the sun, exploring the sculptures put up in the garden.

The paintings inside were very interesting, and so intense, as each piece had been chosen by the family over the decades. I loved all the cubist, impressionist and pointillist paintings there. They also had a lot of Van Goghs, my favourites being the ‘Flowers in a Blue Vase’ (which I painted myself later) and the ‘Terrace of a Cafe at Night’.

Pointillism

Van Gogh's cafe

Cubism

LAM museum (Keukenhof castle) (Nov 2021)

This was a very small museum in the gardens of the Keukenhof castle, in the town of Lisse. It is dedicated to art related to food. I found some of the pieces very interesting, some very random. Overall I would say, if you are in the area, you can go in. Otherwise you aren’t missing much if you miss it.


Mauritshuis (Hague) (June 2022)

Vermeer's Delft

We stopped at the Mauritshuis museum in Hague on the sunny day we wanted to visit Scheveningen. There were loads of paintings, the most famous of them being ‘The Girl with the Pearl Earring’, by Vermeer. Somehow I wasn’t impressed by it. I did stop at another painting, a rare landscape. And then I realised it was by him, ‘The View of Delft’. You cannot but stare at this one.

Inside Mauritshuis

There were a lot of Rubens and Rembrandts in the museum too. Rembrandts’ lighting of the characters was just stunning. Also the decor of the museum from the inside was very luxurious - it felt like we were walking in someone’s plush living room.


Museum Prinsenhof (Delft) (June 2022)

We visited the Prinsenhof museum when visiting Delft. It is located in a convent with some beautiful gardens outside. Inside it has many displays of pottery from around the world, including Delft Pottery. It also showcases the history of the William of Orange, his struggles, and how the city of Delft supported him in that journey. It was a good place to learn some Dutch history.


Waterland museum (Monnickendam) (June 2022)

We went up to this museum when we had gone cycling to Monnickendam. It’s a very small museum, mostly talking about the Waterland region, how it conquered and harnessed all the water around, how polders were made and so on. It also gives one a chance to look behind a carillon, the Speeltoren carillon. And see the inner workings of the musical instrument. It was interesting.


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