Amsterdam Museums
From:
Amsterdam
ABOVE: Inside the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.
Museums and attractions
Allard Pierson
Egyptian, Greek, and Roman artifacts are the main draws here. The remodeled Egyptian rooms
have scale models of the pyramids and a temple, plus a computer that prints the visitor's
name in hieroglyphics.
Amsterdam
Museum
A former orphanage houses the city museum, which shows "how Amsterdam grew from a
small medieval town to a world-famous center."
Anne Frank House
The late teenage diarist has become a symbol of 20th Century Amsterdam. This
page describes the girl, her house, her diary, and educational programs
sponsored by the Anne Frank House, where waiting lines can be long on weekends
or during vacation periods.
Artis
Royal Zoo
Live animals aren't the only stars in Europe's oldest zoo. The park also houses a
planetarium, a geological museum, and a zoological museum.
Biblical
Museum
See historic Bibles, temple models, and Egyptian artifacts displayed in
a pair of restored canalside mansions that date back to 1662. (Unfortunately,
this site was only in Dutch the last time we checked, but you can translate with
Google.)
Defence Line of Amsterdam
Amsterdam is surrounded by a 135km (84-mile) ring of forts and artillery sites that were
built between 1883 and 1920. The defenses were augmented with canals and locks that
allowed temporary flooding of selected areas.
Electric Ladyland
The "first museum of fluorescent art" offer gallery-style exhibits,
participatory art, and exhibits of fluorescent minerals, fluorescence in
astronomy, etc. It's a five-minute walk from the Anne Frank House.
De Oude Kerk
The Old Church is Amsterdam's oldest, and today it's a center for organ concerts
and cultural activities in the town center. See the church's Web site for
opening times and a concert schedule.
Our Lord in the
Attic
Visit a restored 17th Century house with period rooms and a secret church under
the eaves. (The hidden church was used by Catholics who weren't allowed to hold
public services in the years after the Reformation.)
Rembrandt House
The 17th Century house where Rembrandt once painted is now used to display his
etchings and a few of his copper etching plates. This badly-behaved site will
open in a new browser window.
Stedelijk Museum
The most important museum of modern art in the Netherlands has a large permanent
collection by Chagall, Mondrian, Picasso, and De Kooning, and other artists of
the past century. (Click the "English" link on the home page if you don't read
Dutch.)
Van Gogh Museum
Take a real or virtual stroll through the museum, which has the largest
collection of paintings by Vincent Van Gogh in the world. (The museum's building
is fully accessible, and you can borrow a wheelchair or bring your own.)
Out of town:
Cruiquius
Visit a restored 150-year-old pumping station that was once used to drain a polder at the
rate of 25,000 liters a second. It's located in Halfweg, a village halfway between
Amsterdam and Haarlem.
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