It’s unusual for me to write an article about something that hasn’t happened yet, but SAIL Amsterdam only happens once every five years: best to be prepared! Here’s your complete SAIL Amsterdam 2020 guide, but in the form of a work in progress. I promise to keep updating as the event nears. Disclosure: This article…
The Willet-Holthuysen Museum: An elegant Golden Age house in Amsterdam
Many tourists visiting Amsterdam come to see the beautiful buildings in the old center. The UNESCO site – officially called “the Seventeenth-Century Canal Ring Area of Amsterdam inside the Singelgracht” – is lined with elegant “Golden Age” houses. It’s very picturesque and very Instagrammable. You can see a few of them on the inside: one…
Muiderslot Castle
When you were little, did you ever draw a picture of a castle? If you were like me, the castle in your picture was square, with a tower in each corner, crenellations along the walls and a drawbridge to an arched gateway in front. I’ve been to a lot of castles in my travels, but…
Eating Europe’s Jordaan Food Tour: A review
Rows of pretty small houses and shopping streets lined with a mixture of hip and quirky stores, along with a smattering of “coffee shops” leaking the reek of marijuana out onto the sidewalk: this used to be my image of Amsterdam’s Jordaan neighborhood. It never occurred to me until I took a Jordaan food tour…
Amsterdam Historical Museum
I visited the Amsterdam Historical Museum (more properly just called the Amsterdam Museum) as an afterthought. It was on my list: one of the many small museums in Amsterdam that I like to visit and write about. That day, though, I wanted to see Below the Surface, an archeological exhibit in Rokin metro station. But…
Below the Surface in Amsterdam
When I went to see Below the Surface in Amsterdam, to be honest, I hadn’t done my research. Just a quick internet search, and I added it to my list of what I might see that day in Amsterdam. I expected a museum, a small one, in or near Rokin metro station, since that was…
Is the Erotic Museum in Amsterdam erotic? A review
The short answer to the question in the title is “No, the Erotic Museum Amsterdam is not erotic.” What is it? Thought provoking and sometimes disturbing. Why I didn’t go to the Erotic Museum Amsterdam before You may remember that I reviewed the Sex Museum some time ago, calling it “the cure for insomnia.” I…
Micropia museum of invisible life
Getting off the tram with my son and daughter, my first indication that we were nearing our destination, Micropia Museum, was an arrow on a building with the text “only 80,000,000 micrometers to Micropia.” Micropia, a new exhibit at the ARTIS zoo in Amsterdam, bills itself as “the world’s first museum of microbes.” Disclosure: This…
Moco Museum: Contemporary art in Amsterdam
Banksy and Dalí on show in one museum? When I heard that, I was definitely up for a day trip to Amsterdam to visit the new Moco Museum. Moco Museum Moco stands for Modern Contemporary Museum and, like the much better-known Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh museum, it is located on the Museumplein in Amsterdam. The…
