Museums
Museums in the Netherlands
Book-ahead museums, art icons and smaller collections worth the detour.
Editor's pickAmsterdam & Randstad · Museums
Rijksmuseum
The Dutch Masters anchor with the strongest first-timer payoff.
Editor's pickAmsterdam & Randstad · Museums
Van Gogh Museum
High-demand timed tickets for the world's largest Van Gogh collection.
Editor's pickAmsterdam & Randstad · Museums
Anne Frank House
The hardest Amsterdam ticket, and the one to plan around first.
Editor's pickSouth Holland & Delta · Museums
Mauritshuis
A compact masterworks museum with Vermeer, Rembrandt and royal setting.
Editor's pickNorth Holland · Museums
Teylers Museum
The oldest museum in the country, and it has barely been redecorated.
Editor's pickCentral Netherlands · Museums
Rietveld Schröder House
The only building De Stijl ever fully realised, and it is tiny.
South Holland & Delta · Museums
Cube Houses
Piet Blom's tilted cubes, and the single one you can go inside.
Central Netherlands · Museums
Dom Tower
465 steps, a guide, and the tallest church tower in the country.
South Holland & Delta · Museums
Delft Vermeer & Delft Blue walk
A compact route through Vermeer context, canals and pottery heritage.
Amsterdam & Randstad · Museums
Stedelijk Museum
Modern and contemporary art, and the least crowded corner of Museumplein.
South Holland & Delta · Museums
Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen
The storage building of a great collection, opened to the public.
Amsterdam & Randstad · Museums
Rembrandt House Museum
The house where Rembrandt actually worked, reconstructed room by room.
South Holland & Delta · Museums
Royal Delft
The surviving seventeenth-century Delftware pottery, still painting by hand.
Central Netherlands · Museums
Museum Speelklok
Self-playing instruments, demonstrated out loud rather than displayed.
Amsterdam & Randstad · Museums
Het Scheepvaartmuseum
The maritime museum, with a full-size East Indiaman moored outside.
South Holland & Delta · Museums
Kunstmuseum Den Haag
Berlage's last building, holding the world's largest Mondrian collection.
South Holland & Delta · Museums
Nieuwe Kerk and the tower climb
The royal burial vault below, and 376 steps above it.
North Holland · Museums
Frans Hals Museum
The group portraits, in the almshouse where Hals himself ended up.
Amsterdam & Randstad · Museums
Verzetsmuseum
Occupation and resistance told as a series of impossible choices.
South & Limburg · Museums
Van Abbemuseum
Mondrian, Picasso, Kandinsky and a serious El Lissitzky holding.
South Holland & Delta · Museums
Escher in Het Paleis
Impossible staircases hung inside a real palace, near the Mauritshuis.
Amsterdam & Randstad · Museums
Portuguese Synagogue
Candlelit seventeenth-century interior, still lit without electricity.
East & North · Museums
Groninger Museum
Bold architecture and exhibitions that justify the northern rail trip.
South Holland & Delta · Museums
Maritiem Museum Rotterdam
Shipping history indoors, with a working harbour of old vessels outside.
Central Netherlands · Museums
Centraal Museum
The city's own collection, and the keeper of the Rietveld archive.
North Holland · Museums
Grote Kerk (Sint-Bavokerk)
The church Mozart played in at ten, filling one side of the Grote Markt.
Amsterdam & Randstad · Museums
Ons' Lieve Heer op Solder
A complete church hidden in the attic of a merchant's house.
South Holland & Delta · Museums
Kunsthal Rotterdam
Rem Koolhaas's exhibition hall, with no collection of its own.
South Holland & Delta · Museums
Panorama Mesdag
An 1881 cylindrical painting you stand inside, still in its own building.
Central Netherlands · Museums
Domkerk
The cathedral the tower belongs to, free to enter and open daily.
South & Limburg · Museums
Sint-Servaasbasiliek and its Treasury
The oldest church in the Netherlands, over the grave it was built for.
East & North · Museums
Martinitoren
Almost 300 steps up the Old Grey One, for seven euros.
East & North · Museums
Forum Groningen
The city's living room: library, cinema and a roof at 45 metres.
Amsterdam & Randstad · Museums
Eye Filmmuseum
Film archive and cinema in the white shard on the north bank.
South Holland & Delta · Museums
Grote of Sint-Laurenskerk
The one medieval building left standing after May 1940.
Central Netherlands · Museums
Museum Catharijneconvent
A thousand years of Dutch religious art, in a medieval convent.
South Holland & Delta · Museums
Oude Kerk
A leaning tower over the canal, and Vermeer's grave inside.
South & Limburg · Museums
Bonnefanten
Aldo Rossi's rocket-shaped dome on the far bank of the Maas.
South Holland & Delta · Museums
Wereldmuseum Rotterdam
An ethnographic collection now rereading its own colonial provenance.
South Holland & Delta · Museums
Louwman Museum
The oldest private car collection in the world, shown chronologically.
South Holland & Delta · Museums
Vermeer Centrum Delft
No original Vermeers, and that is the honest starting point.
South Holland & Delta · Museums
Museum De Lakenhal
Rembrandt's earliest work, in the hall where cloth was graded.
Amsterdam & Randstad · Museums
Museum Van Loon
A canal house still furnished as one, with a formal garden behind.
South Holland & Delta · Museums
Peace Palace Visitors Centre
Free, half an hour, and the only way most people get past the gate.
North Holland · Museums
Corrie ten Boom House
A watchmaker's house with a false wall, shown only on a guided tour.
South & Limburg · Museums
Philips Museum
The 1891 lightbulb workshop the whole city grew out of.
Central Netherlands · Museums
Universiteitsmuseum and the Oude Hortus
Anatomical specimens indoors, a walled botanical garden out the back.
South Holland & Delta · Museums
Museum Beelden aan Zee
Modern sculpture dug into the dune behind Scheveningen boulevard.