March 2023 | Written by – Willem Van Hoorn
This month’s post may be a bit shorter than usual, because I have just a little introductory little story to tell. And if I succeed, this post will serve to send you on a discovery tour afterwards, so you can find out more yourself. If you haven’t done so already, obviously..
Here we go. There is a nice little item available in the Netherlands that can help you, and your friends have a lot of pleasant quality time. Recently I realized that not all of my international friends know about it, and hence I decided to dedicate this month’s blog post to it.
The item I’m talking about is the ‘Dutch Museum Pass’ (Museumkaart in Dutch). For 65 Euro it will give you access to more than 450 museums in the county. Usually at no costs. You just scan your card at the entrance, and you’re good to go in. In rare cases an additional fare may apply, in case of a very exceptional exhibition, like the current Vermeer exhibition in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
And when I say ‘museum’ I invite you to take that word in the broadest possible meaning of the word. Obviously, among the more than 450 museums that the card gives you access to are some that have a lot of ‘traditional art’ on display, like the Rijksmuseum, the Mauritshuis in the Hague, the Frans Hals museum in Haarlem and the Prinsenhof in Delft.
But you can also find your way to, just to mention some, the impressionists and contemporaries in places like the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and the Kröller-Müller museum in the national park De Hoge Veluwe, north-west of the city of Arnhem. Or gradually move into (semi) contemporary art, for instance in Eindhoven’s own van Abbe Museum, De Pont in Tilburg or the Groninger Museum in the north of the country (that currently has a retrospective on fashion designer Versace).
But this was only the start. You think of something, and there’s probably a museum about it. Comics? There are several museums about it, like the MOCA (the Museum of Comic Art) in Noordwijk. Pipe smoking? Jenever (Dutch gin)? Try the Amsterdam Pipe Puseum, or the Nationaal Jenevermuseum (Dutch only). Trains and railways? The Railway Museum in Utrecht. I assume you have already seen the Philips Museum and the DAF museum? I mean: how Eindhoven can it get?
I can go on and on, but I have no intention to make the list too long. So, back to the Museum Pass. You can order it online at the Museum Pass website. But you can also get it at the entrance of many museums. It comes with a monthly newsletter that announces new exhibitions and new museums that you can access with the card.