How to Visit a Museum Anywhere , Especially in Amsterdam or Holland
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How to visit a museum anywhere
How to visit the Rijksmuseum
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How to visit a museum in Amsterdam and Holland
I was not much of an art fan until I visited the Rijksmuseum on my second trip to Holland. The Rijksmuseum is the grand museum of the Netherlands. It's current location is the most impressive building in Amsterdam with nicely landscaped garden, pools, and resting spots surrounding.
Over my years of traveling to Amsterdam I have now spent the equivalent of five full days inside the Rijksmuseum. I only feel I have seen about half of it as closely as I wish to. While the Rijksmuseum is not on the grand scale of the Louvre or the Vatican, it is a must see for Amsterdam visitors. The Rijksmuseum is located in the newly renovated Museumplein in a part of town nicely away from the hustle or the Red Light District and only a bit removed from the bustle of Leidseplein.
Mention and crosslink Museumyaarkaart page and other discounts
Go during off hours, go after 3pm to miss all the school tour groups. Nothing against them, Dutch kids are kind of cute, but they get in the way.
Plan to spend a few hours to a full day, then leave early and see the area if you get bored. Often if I am in a town long enough where I pass the museum a few times, I will duck in free with my museum card only long enough to walk through some of the museum even for only 15 minutes. Then I have a good idea of how much time to reserve for the real visit.
It seems like each museum entrance is made differently to confuse the first-time visitor. Perhaps it was just me, but if you have your museum card, get it out and you will sail through the ticket area. Once you get through any lines, the ticket taker usually will take your museum card and pass it through a card reader. If you are in a museum that if free (gratis) with a museum card, then you will receive a receipt. Be sure to ask for a floor plan.
If you don't have a museum card, or the museum you are visiting is not free with a museum card, you will need to shell out some guilders to enter. Sometimes museums will offer a discount for holders of museum cards, but you still have to make up the difference in cash. Most bigger museums will take credit cards, but in smaller towns this may not be possible.
Once you enter the museum it's time for a visit to the cloakroom or lockers. Larger museums like the Rijksmuseum and the van Gogh have free cloak rooms - actually cloak counters would describe them better. The idea is to hand your stuff over to the guy behind the counter, and he will give you a claim check, often in the form of a bulky plastic card.
I wouldn't pass any expensive cameras over. Do be sure to check any coats, sweaters or jackets. Museums are necessarily kept cool and dry, so you will not need any coverings. You want to spend your 5 hours in the museum as unencumbered as possible.
Smaller museums have lockers. Often there is a one guilder deposit required to use the locker, so carry some pocket change including a one guilder piece. If there is no one attending the locker, it's likely you need to insert the required coin into a slot on the inside or outside of the locker door.
Once you have all your gear stashed it's time to check a couple more things before you tour the actual museum. First, are you hungry? Museums commonly have very passable lunch rooms or cafeterias. I remember having an excellent uijtsmiter at the Frans Halsmuseum in Haarlem. The woman working the lunchroom was alone and very busy with many customers, but everyone was patient and congenial. In the end I did get my food and I enjoyed it.
Now make any required pit stops and head into the museum gift store. I enjoy buying a small guide to the museum so that after I return home the the US, I can revisit a museum anytime I wish by opening the book and strolling through the pages. Aside from your basic tour book for about ten dollars, most museums have published inexpensive full size paperback books showing the elements of their permanent collections. These more extensive catalogs are well worth the higher price of twenty to twenty-five dollars. In addition, books focusing on artists featured in the museum are available as well, ranging from five to seventy-five dollars and up. Some of the books look great, but I only buy expensive art books cheaply at garage and estate sales (usually)
Having gone through all the rituals of an expectant museum visitor, guidebook in hand, stomach filled, coat checked; you are now eager if not desperate to actually see a painting or anything. As you go through the museum, go as the name of this website, at your pace. Feel free to be non-linear about it, too. Go directly to the Nightwatch painting in the Rijksmuseum, for example, and see the less stellar displays after.
Sometimes painting and other art can present quite a scene. Much of Golden Age Dutch painting centers on themes of morality. Some works show risqué scenes of drunk carousers, or Armageddon-like vista of death, destruction, and mayhem. These painters are showing the foolishness of mans flirtations with immoral behavior, saying "See these fools and don't behave like them."
Religious themes and scenes dominate 15th-17th century Dutch painting, sometimes in an obviously cynical fashion. One painting, titled "Priest Touches Nun," shows a shocking scene of a Christian priest fondling a nun's naked breast. The nun has a look of boredom, loathing, and apprehension; the priest has a simultaneously studious and naughty countenance.
By reading the placard next to the work, I learned that this painting represents and old Christian practice. When a nun was accused of having broken her vow of chastity, her breasts needed to be check in such a hands-on fashion to see if the nun's breasts were swollen from pregnancy. If the breast was hard the nun would be punished. I imagine this real practice may have been practiced, indeed. Probably every priest would accuse his favorite nuns of pregnancy at least every few months!
Your trip to the museum in Amsterdam or Holland can be leisurely if you make it that way by visiting off hours and making use of all the available facilities. I will say one last time how important if is for any Amsterdam visitor in Holland to visit the Rijksmuseum, even if only to see the outside and the grounds. I go to the Rijksmuseum everytime I visit Amsterdam.