World-class museums
Rembrandt's Night Watch, Vermeer's Milkmaid and 800 years of Dutch history.
The world's largest Van Gogh collection. Book a time slot online.
The Secret Annex where Anne Frank hid. Tickets only online and sell out weeks ahead.
Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring and View of Delft in an intimate 17th-century palace.
Van Gogh and a huge sculpture garden, inside the Hoge Veluwe National Park.
An open-air museum of life around the former Zuiderzee.
Living here? A yearly Museumkaart gives free entry to hundreds of museums and pays for itself after a few visits.
Windmills, tulips and canals
- Kinderdijk
- 19 windmills from the 18th century draining a polder, a UNESCO World Heritage site near Rotterdam.
- Zaanse Schans
- Working windmills, wooden houses and craft workshops, 20 minutes from Amsterdam.
- Keukenhof
- Seven million flower bulbs in a park near Lisse; open only in spring.
- Amsterdam canal ring
- The 17th-century canals, a UNESCO site. See them from a boat or on foot early in the morning.
- Giethoorn
- A village with canals instead of streets; rent a quiet electric "whisper boat".
Cities worth a day trip
| Known for | Don't miss | |
|---|---|---|
| Rotterdam | Modern architecture, the port | Cube houses, Markthal, Erasmus Bridge |
| Utrecht | Canals with wharf cellars | Climb the Dom Tower, the tallest church tower in the country |
| Delft | Vermeer and Delft Blue pottery | The Market Square and Nieuwe Kerk |
| Haarlem | A compact old centre | Frans Hals Museum, Grote Markt |
| Maastricht | Burgundian south | Old town, caves of Sint-Pietersberg |
| Leiden | The oldest university | Canals, museums, the hortus botanicus |
Nature and the coast
A UNESCO tidal area. Take a ferry to Texel or another island, or join a guided mudflat walk (wadlopen).
Heath, forest and sand drifts. Borrow a free white bicycle at the entrance.
Scheveningen, Zandvoort and miles of dunes, all reachable by train or bike.
The 32 km dam from 1932 and the storm barriers built after 1953: engineering as an attraction.
With children
- Efteling in Kaatsheuvel: a fairy-tale theme park, one of the oldest in the world.
- NEMO Science Museum in Amsterdam: hands-on science in a building shaped like a ship.
- Madurodam in The Hague: the Netherlands in miniature.
- Burgers' Zoo in Arnhem, with an indoor rainforest and ocean.
Going by train? Public transport in the Netherlands explains tickets, discounts and OVpay.
Sources
This article is based on these official pages. If anything here differs from them, the official page is right.