The best Museums in Amsterdam

Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

The Rijksmuseum, which means Imperial Museum in English, is the most important museum of the Netherlands and one of the most visited museums in the world. This national museum is the Dutch counterpart of the Louvre and offers many of the country’s national treasures.

The museum leaves no stone unturned as it takes on Dutch history, historical sculptures, historical weapons and ship models, colonial relics from Asia, paintings like Rembrandt’s Nightwatch, works of Dutch masters like Vermeer, Frans Hals and Jan Steen and much more.

At Meet The Cities we believe this museum is a must-visit for travelers to Amsterdam. It’s majestically located on Museum Square (Museumplein) next to the Van Gogh museum.

Van Gogh Museum

The Van Gogh Museum is an impressive museum dedicated to the life and works of Vincent van Gogh. The museum has a collection of hundreds of his paintings, hundreds of his drawings and hundreds of his personal letters that give an insight into his innovative and powerful art and the psyche of the artist. In the museum a wide range of Van Gogh’s contemporaries and artists that inspired Van Gogh are also represented, like Rodin, Gauguin, Monet, Pissarro and Seurat.

The museum can be found in the heart of the city at museum square (museumplein). With luxury shopping streets and plenty of bars and restaurants nearby.

Wereldmuseum

The Wereldmuseum Amsterdam (meaning World Museum) is a colorful ethnographic museum where you can meet cultures from around the world. The Dutch used to be explorers and a colonial power with a global presence. The Worldmuseum was originally a colonial museum called the Tropenmuseum where colonial art from around the world was collected, from never before seen cultures. It shows a rich and colorful display of Caribbean, latin American, african and asian cultures. From traditional art to unusual objects. And from historical photo’s and film to musical instruments, traditional outfits and masks. 

The world museum in Amsterdam is the best place to visit if you wish to enrich your journey by soaking in reflective art and the exotic pieces from a diverse range of distant cultures.

Het Scheepvaartmuseum

Het Scheepvaartmuseum, also known as the National Maritime Museum, is a museum soaked in Dutch history. The Netherlands has a long maritime history. During the Dutch golden age no nation had as many ships as the Netherlands and the nation dominated naval warfare and the Asian trade.

The Scheepvaartmuseum is arguably the best museum in Amsterdam if you are interested in the Dutch golden age, in which the Dutch republic laid the foundation for the enlightenment and became the richest nation on earth. If you wish to experience how life was on a Dutch East India Company trade ship, see old world maps, beautiful paintings of legendary officers and their sea battles, ship decorations, old weapons and much more you will be delighted here.

Amsterdam Museum

The Amsterdam Historical Museum is a quite an interactive museum that explores the long history of Amsterdam, the capital city of the Netherlands. For travelers that enjoy immersing themselves in local history and culture this museum quite a gem, as it contains the art collection the city of Amsterdam has been growing since the 16th century.

The Netherlands has been the richest country of the world for several centuries. And Amsterdam used to be one of the three biggest European cities, together with London and Paris. As such the city has been the center stage of many world changing events. As a free haven for controversial thinkers and an international trade hub in the cultural heart of Europe it has had a global influence on freedom, art, philosophy, politics and the very way we do business.

In the Amsterdam Museum the story of Amsterdam both present day and historical Amsterdam is being told based on the four core values of the city: entrepreneurship, freethinking, citizenship and creativity and how it developed over the course of history. The collection contains a wide variety of objects, from paintings to armors, which cover not only the rich Dutch golden age, but also the modern progressive social developments.

The collection is both inspiring and entertaining as you will become familiar with the historical trends of the city. The Amsterdam Museum is certainly one of the best museums to visit if you have an interest in the local european culture and want to dive into the lives and legacy of Amsterdammers.

H’ART Amsterdam

Overlooking the Amstel River you can find the H’ART Museum. This museum was formerly known as the Hermitage Amsterdam, which used to focus primarily on collections about Russian Tsars and their art collections, but they recently changed their focus and broadened their horizons. 

Now the H’ART museum collaborates with the British Museum, Centre Pompidou and the Smithsonian American Art Museum to showcase world famous art collections to Amsterdam. And you can find changing thematic exhibitions on display from various notable world museums. As an example there are currently multiple exhibitions running, including one about the life of Julius Caesar and a display about the history of Amsterdam.

Allard Pierson Museum

The Allard Pierson Museum is the archaeological museum from the University of Amsterdam. Ancient history buffs will love it, as the museum covers ancient Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek, Etruscan and Roman relics. You can find anything from statues to sarcophaguses here.

The museum is not as streamlined as some of the bigger museums in Amsterdam, but that doesn’t make its collection less impressive. It’s fun to travel through time and discover how the ancients lived and which artifacts they made.

Joods Historisch Museum

The Jewish Historical Museum is dedicated to the history, culture and religion of the Jewish people. Originally the Jewish people came to the liberal Netherlands as refugees from the oppressive Catholic regimes in South Europe, such as the Spanish inquisition. Despite that Jewish people have often been perceived as outsiders and at times even scapegoats, the industrious Jews have made many important contributions to the mercantile Netherlands and have made a lasting mark on Dutch culture. In this museum you can find exhibitions what it meant to be a Jew in the Netherlands throughout the ages. The museum shows the rich Jewish culture, from historical art to ceremonial objects. The museum aims to give a memorable impression of the heritage the Jewish people have given us.

Museum het Rembrandthuis

Rembrandt is often considered one of the greatest painters in history. The museum het Rembrandthuis is the very house where Rembrandt used to live. Here you can discover how Rembrandt lived as he created his masterpieces. The museum itself is an art piece as it carefully reconstructed the home of Rembrandt and its walls are covered by paintings of Rembrandt himself, his teacher and others. The collection of Rembrandts etchings is virtually complete.

Museum Vrolik

Museum Vrolik is located in the Academic Medical Center of Amsterdam. The museum shows what humans look like on the inside, with the central themes being normal and unusual developments of the human body. Brains, embryo’s, siamese twins, skeletons, animals, nerve tissue. If you are interested in the human anatomy and weird deformations and you are not easily disturbed, then this spooky museum is a fascinating place to see.

Science Center NEMO

Science Center NEMO is a fun, playful and educational science museum aimed at children and families. It’s a very popular museum in the Netherlands and often the destination of school trips as it gives visitors the opportunity to see and discover all kinds of aspects of science. This science fair-like museum is very interactive and allows visitors to do all kinds of experiments. The museum is housed in an unique boat-shaped building and offers a great roof terrace with possibly one of the best views over Amsterdam.

Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam is an art and design museum in the classic sense. The seamlessly designed museum has a collection of present day and classic modern art. The collections that are exhibited are constantly changing. The museum has an extensive collection of paintings, photos, posters, jewelry and sculptures. The museum challenges the visitor with conversation provoking art, with a collection that contains works from Dumas, Matisse, Mondriaan and Picasso.

FOAM

FOAM is a prominent photography museum where a platform is given to photography in all it’s facets. You can find historical, art, news and fashion photographs here. This trendy museum is one of the most visited photography museums in the world and demonstrates both thematic modern day and historical photo collections. Both notable names and newly scouted upcoming photographers are given a platform. The museum also has a gallery called Foam Editions where you can buy artistic works.