This guide of best museums in Amsterdam It will help you to know the most cultural side of one of the most beautiful and tolerant cities in Europe.
In addition to canals, bicycles, coffe shops, this city is full of museums of different themes and for all tastes, which is very interesting to include in your tourist route through the city.
Keep in mind that in this city lived great artists like Van Gogh and Rembrandt, who left an important part of their collection and it was also a city of tragic past with the Nazi occupation during World War II, of which numerous memories are preserved .
Based on the experience of our two visits to this city, during the last one we wrote this guide to travel to Amsterdam, we have made this selection of the ones we believe are 5 essential Amsterdam museums. We start!
1. Van Gogh Museum
The great Vincent van Gogh who died at 37, painted approximately 900 paintings and about 1,100 drawings, of which the Van Gogh Museum has more than 200 paintings and 500 drawings from different periods, making it the most important collection of the painter.
We must remember that his paintings, of which only one was sold while alive, passed to his brother Theo, who died a year later, so that the inheritance was for his widow Johanna who took care of exposing and disseminating his works in Amsterdam, until in 1973 this museum was inaugurated.
Among the most important masterpieces of this museum, which can be explored in just over an hour, are "Potato Eaters", "The bedroom in Arles", "The sunflowers", "Almond Blossom", "The yellow house" and the "Wheat Field with Crows", in addition to several self-portraits, personal items and the letters he wrote to Theo.
To know the history and curiosities of the painter and his paintings, we recommend booking this guided tour in Spanish with an art specialist, much more interesting and entertaining than the comments of the audio guide.
If you do not want to take a guided tour and avoid the long queues that are formed at the entrance, we recommend you book this quick entrance ticket to the museum in advance and take one of the Spanish brochures with information about the painter and his paintings.
If you have the I amsterdam City Card that includes admission to the main museums to visit in Amsterdam like this, you must reserve the time of entry from this link beforehand.
Visiting hours: every day from 9 am to 6 pm (Friday until 9 pm). You can check the updated schedules on this page.
Van Gogh Museum
2. Anne Frank House
The Anne Frank House is one of the most breathtaking places in the city and one of the most essential Amsterdam museums.
In a secret annex of this house, Anne Frank and her family lived together with 4 other people of Jewish origin, during the Nazi occupation of the city. Between July 1942 and August 1944 this 13-year-old girl wrote several daily newspapers in this hiding place, until someone gave them away and they were all sent to concentration camps.
Of these fields only his father, Otto Frank, who published the "Ana Frank's diary" years later as I remember his family and the terrible consequences of war, becoming one of the most read books in the whole world.
To visit this museum house that contains the original newspaper and many memories of that time, it is essential to reserve the entry on its official website about two months in advance, so as not to run out of space. You also have the option to arrive very soon at the ticket office and buy some of the few that are put on sale every day.
Those who buy the ticket online can access the museum between 9 am and 3:30 pm, while tickets at the box office only give you access after 3:30 pm.
In addition to the brochure that will be delivered to you at the entrance with the story of Ana and her family, we recommend you take the audio guide in Spanish so you don't miss out on any important details. The average duration of the visit is one hour.
A good option to know the history of the city during the Nazi occupation is to book this tour of Anna Frank through the Jewish quarter, one of the best excursions in Amsterdam
Visiting hours: every day from 9 am to 10 pm from April to October, the rest of the months close at 7 pm.
Anne Frank House Museum
3. Rijksmuseum, one of the best museums in Amsterdam
The Rijksmuseum is the Holland's most important museum, with more than two million visitors a year and another of the best museums in Amsterdam.
During your visit you will take a walk through the art history of the Netherlands with special mention to the great painters of the Dutch Golden Age and the Delft ceramic collection, as well as an area where Egyptian and Asian art is exhibited.
Among the most important paintings of this museum, which can be explored in about two hours, are the "The night round" Y "The Jewish Bride" from Rembrandt, "The Milkmaid" Y "Woman reading a letter" from Vermeer and "The Cheerful Drinker" of Hals, among many others.
In addition to art, this museum also has an important display of objects ranging from the Middle Ages to the last century with model ships, antique weapons, period furniture, doll houses and, above all, an impressive library.
To learn more about the history of the museum and its most important pieces, we recommend you book this visit with an expert Spanish guide in Art History or take this offer that includes a guided tour of this museum, that of Van Gogh and a cruise through the channels of the city.
If you don't want to take a guided tour, we advise you to book this quick ticket in advance to skip the lines.
Visiting hours: every day from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Rijksmuseum, one of the best museums in Amsterdam
4. Rembrandt Museum
The Rembrandt House Museum, where he lived and painted one of the most important characters in art history, is another of the Amsterdam museums that you cannot miss.
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn resided in this house from 1639 to 1658, his most prolific artistic stage that ended with the house auctioned after bankruptcy and its subsequent deterioration, until in 1907, the Rembrandthuis Foundation acquired the property and restored it to recover the what it looked like when the painter lived in it.
During the visit of approximately one hour, you will tour the kitchen, some rooms with furniture of the time, a room with several surprising objects that he used as models and above all, the room where he painted great masterpieces such as "The night round".
With the purchase of the ticket an audio guide in Spanish is included that will allow you to know the history of this house and the great artist.
Visiting hours: every day from 10am to 6pm.
Rembrandt's night round
5. Amstelkring Museum
The Amstelkring or Our Lord in the Attic Museum, located in a 17th century building, is one of the Amsterdam's most amazing museums.
And it is that this normal-looking bourgeois house has hidden in the attic, the clandestine Catholic church Our Lord in the Attic.
It must be remembered that since 1578 Catholic worship was banned throughout the country and believers had to devise them so as not to be discovered while practicing it. One of them, the merchant Jan Hartman, merged three attics of his property to build a church that could gather more than 100 faithful and that over time became a museum.
During the visit you can explore the rooms of the house until you go up to the last floor where the impressive church with a magnificent baroque altar and the Chapel of Santa Maria is located.
It is worth spending an hour to visit it, always accompanied by a free audio guide that will help you get to know its interesting history.
Visiting hours: Monday to Saturday from 10am to 6pm, Sundays open at 1pm.
All these museums are in the usual tourist routes, which you can prepare following these optimized guides, depending on the days you have:
If you feel like helping us complete the list of the 5 best museums in Amsterdam, add yours in the comments
