Amsterdam - lesser known things to do

[tonybennscat]

DH has booked us 5 days in Amsterdam in late May. We’ve been before (and loved it) and have done all the ‘big’ things - Van Gogh Museum, Rijksmuseum, Anne Frank House, Resistance and maritime museums, Vondelpark, boat trips etc, we’ve also been to Den Haag (lovely) and Rotterdam.

Any tips for things we might have missed - we’re quite happy just to mooch around drinking coffee and eating.

Strange thing is it's kind of gone out of fashion a bit for weekend breaks - but we love it and the foodie scene has come on in leaps and bounds from when we first used to go 25 years ago. Also has the biggest and best branch of Rituals I've ever seen - on 3 floors complete with beauty parlour and cafe etc

If you're prepared to travel a bit, the Kröller-Müller museum in the national park is one of the best art museums in the country. You have to pay for park entry, but then bicycles are free to borrow and it's really beautiful. Pampus Island is also an interesting half day trip from the city or Naarden with its amazing star fort (look it up on Google maps!)

Cat museum
FOAM
BOOM CHICAGO

Those beach beasts are spooky.
My list is getting longer. DH loves a trip to a cinema in a foreign country so we’ll definitely look to do that.

We did the Resistance museum last year and it was well worth a visit.

@FarmerDramaLlama we’re staying in the American hotel! Have stayed there once before briefly. Will definitely sample a cocktail there.

Lunch at one of the beach restaurants in Noordwijk?

My daughter and I just went and my favourite thing was Straat - just loved it.

If you like classical music at all we did a lunchtime concert by the conservatoire and it was lovely and very reasonably priced. We also went to a ballet.

My daughter loved the zoo. I'm not a zoo person usually but it was really nice and the cage was great.

Day out to Utrecht or Leiden.

Flying home today so thought I would come back and update what we ended up doing. DH managed to hurt his knee a few weeks before going so we couldn’t do as much walking as we wanted. But we did do the following -

Noordmarkt and a wander through the Jordan. There were some really interesting stalls.

Van Gogh museum (been before but well worth a second visit). Also went to the Stedelijk museum of modern art for the Anselm Keifer exhibition. Well worth a visit. It never gets mentioned much but we thought there was a lot of interesting stuff to see.

STRAAT - DH enjoyed this a lot.

Went to Delft for the day, visited the pottery museum and had a wander round the old town and market. Found the spot that Vermeer painted A View of Delft from. DH bought a LOT of cheese.

Rembrandt house - this was a highlight for me. I had a lovely chat with the lady who demonstrates the paint mixing. Could have talked to her all day.

Wandered round the Spui and Begijnhof and the de Pijp area. Spent a lot of time sitting outside cafes giving DH’s knee a rest and people watching. Oh, and a boat trip because it was raining.

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions!