Amsterdam has more museums than any visitor can sensibly fit into a trip, and the usual mistake is trying. Two in a day is a good day; three is a blur. This is a guide to the ones that matter most, what each is actually like, and how to decide between them.
The Rijksmuseum
The national museum, and the one to choose if you only choose one. It covers eight centuries of Dutch art and history, but the reason people queue is the seventeenth century: Rembrandt's Night Watch, Vermeer's Milkmaid, Frans Hals, Jan Steen, a wall of ship models and Delftware. The building reopened in 2013 after a very long renovation, and the passage cut through the middle of it carries a public cycle route, a fight the cyclists won, and a detail that says a lot about the city.
Give it at least two hours. If you have less, go straight to the Gallery of Honour and accept that you are skipping the rest.
The Van Gogh Museum
The largest collection of Van Gogh's work anywhere, hung roughly chronologically so you watch the painting change as his life does. The Bedroom, Almond Blossom, one of the Sunflowers, and a great many letters.
Book a timed ticket online well before you travel. This is not a museum you walk up to, and the slots for popular days go early.
The Anne Frank House
Not a museum in the ordinary sense. It is the building on the Prinsengracht where the Frank family and four others hid for two years, and the rooms behind the bookcase are kept bare. The visit is quiet, narrow, and takes about an hour, and the stairs are steep and unavoidable.
Tickets are sold online only, in timed slots released in advance, and they sell out. If it matters to you, plan the rest of your day around whatever slot you can get, not the other way round. Go with the understanding that this is a memorial rather than a sight.
The Stedelijk
Modern and contemporary art and design, from Malevich and Mondrian to installations made this decade, in a building with a huge white extension the city nicknamed the bathtub. It is the best counterweight to a morning of Golden Age painting, and it is usually the least crowded of the Museumplein three.
The Moco Museum
A small museum in a villa on the Museumplein, showing Banksy, contemporary and immersive work. It is popular with a younger crowd and very shareable. Be aware of what you are buying: it is compact, it gets busy, and it is not cheap for its size. If that suits you it is genuinely fun; if you want depth, spend the same time and money next door.
The Tropenmuseum
A world cultures museum in a grand nineteenth-century building east of the centre, with a collection that came largely out of the Dutch colonial period. The museum says so directly, and much of the current display is about that history and how the objects got here. It is thoughtful, uncrowded, and a very different afternoon from the Museumplein.
Two more worth knowing
The Rembrandt House is the actual house Rembrandt lived and worked in, reconstructed as an artist's studio, with etching demonstrations that explain the process better than any label. The National Maritime Museum sits on the eastern docks with a full-size replica East Indiaman moored outside, the best of the city's museums for children, along with the science centre next to it, whose roof terrace is free and gives you the harbour from above.
How to plan the day
Book the timed ones first, Van Gogh and the Anne Frank House, and build around them. Check opening days, since not every museum keeps the same ones. And leave real gaps: Amsterdam is a city best understood outside, between the museums, along the canals that connect them.
That in-between time is worth planning too. A city game turns the walk from one museum to the next into a route of puzzles that tells you what you are passing, the merchant houses, the hoisting beams, the hidden courtyards, instead of leaving it as dead time between tickets.
New to the idea? Read how to play first.
Frequently asked questions
Which museum should I visit if I only have time for one?
The Rijksmuseum, for range, or the Van Gogh Museum if you care more about one artist seen properly than about a national collection.
Do I need to book museum tickets in advance in Amsterdam?
For the Van Gogh Museum and the Anne Frank House, yes, both use timed slots and both sell out. For the others it is advisable in high season and usually optional otherwise.
How many museums can I do in a day?
Two, comfortably. Three only if they are small, and you will remember less of all of them.
Are the Amsterdam museums good with children?
The maritime museum and the science centre are built for them. The Rijksmuseum has a children's route. The Anne Frank House needs judgement, it is heavy, and the age at which that lands is different for every child.
Is a museum card worth it?
It depends entirely on how many museums you will actually enter. Work out your realistic list first, usually shorter than the one you started with, and do the arithmetic on that.
What about a group visit?
Large groups and busy museums are a poor match; a shared outdoor activity between museum slots works better. See the options for companies and groups.
See the city between the museums
Book two museums, leave the afternoon open, and spend it outside. If you would like help putting a group day together, get in touch. Our guide to quests in Amsterdam covers what to do with the hours in between.
