Amsterdam has always been one of the most profound places I've ever visited in the world.
Visiting Amsterdam gives you the feeling of home on a suburb level.
I tell you, try and visit the lovely sites all around her, meet the locals; they're super friendly and the overall experience of interacting with and getting to know them is a wonderful experience that should be added among the things to do in Amsterdam when you go visiting.
But no matter what you do in Amsterdam, try and visit the museums.
Amsterdam is a city of museums -- there are more than 400 museums and art galleries within the city.
It's normally said that no other city in the world has more museums than Amsterdam and you have not visited Amsterdam if you've not seen the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum and the Stedelijk Museum.
For modern art lovers - Amsterdam offers the Rijksmuseum, the Rembrandt House Museum.
For the foodies - the Amsterdam Cheese Museum, for those with quirky tastes, the Museum of Bags and Purses.
For the truly weird - Amsterdam has the Vrolik Museum and the Torture Museum among many others for your viewing delight.
Here are 5 awesome Museums you should totally visit in Amsterdam when you visit:
1. The Rijksmuseum:
Your trip has not begun if you've not visited the Rijksmuseum.
The Rijksmuseum which in English means- The State Museum is one of Amsterdam's biggest museums of art and history. It is also Amsterdam's oldest museum at over 200 years of age. With a dazzling refurbishment that cost 315 million euros over a period of 10 years, Rijksmuseum is one of Amsterdam's grandest museums.
Rijksmuseum is a world cultural center and a home to thousands of masterpieces including Rembrandt's greatest work- The Night Watch.
For the modern art lover, the Rijksmuseum provides a veritable heaven of contemporary and modern art with over 8,000 pieces by the Dutch Masters; Rembrandt's Night Watch, his most famous and largest painting, Johannes Vermeer's "The Milkmaid" and other masterpieces by Hendrick Avercamp, Hugo de Groot, Bartholomew Van der Helst and many others which could very well see you spending the whole day there.
Visiting the Rijksmuseum is a Dutch experience you definitely do not want to miss.
2. The Van Gogh Museum:
Internationally, this museum is more famous than the larger Rijksmuseum due to the name recognition of the troubled artist, Van Gogh.
The Van Gogh museum holds the world's largest collection of works by Van Gogh like his most famous painting - "The Potato Eaters", "Sunflowers" and the "The Bedroom", arranged over five floors with different phases of his life, work and working style explained on each floor.
It also houses an impressive collection of work by his contemporaries like Ganguin, Toulouse Lautrec, Monet and Bernard and also a number of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings.
Due to the huge popularity of this museum and Van Gogh lovers around the world, there is usually a long queue of people waiting to see the museum so you will need to plan your visit well in advance.
3. Museum of Bags and Purses (Tassenmuseum):
Most visitors to Amsterdam tend to stick to the old faithfuls when it comes to choosing which museums to visit.
While the Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh museum certainly have their charms, what truly sets Amsterdam apart is its mind boggling abundance of strange and quirky museums devoted to the most unusual topics.
One is the Tassenmuseum otherwise called the Museum of Bags and Purses.
Imagine wearing a different handbag every day of the year for 10 years and you've almost got the amount of bags on display at the museum of Bags and Purses.
This museum began as a small exhibition of handbags in 1996 and has now grown into the world's largest collection of Western handbags from the 15th century to the present.
This museum is housed in an impressive canal house dating back to 1668.
Handbags on display include a 1980s creation by Dallas Handbags, a Diet Coke Can purse, a Judith Leiber Creation, "The Cupcake", a Swarovski crystal covered bag which became immensely popular after a replica was featured in the first Sex and the City movie.
If you are fashion focused, this could be the museum to visit.
4. Amsterdam Cheese Museum:
Just down the street from the Anne Frank House (another museum) is the Amsterdam Cheese Museum.
It feels more like a shop with shelves filled to the ceiling with a huge variety of Dutch cheese including the world's famous Gouda and Edam cheeses.
There are storyboards describing a basic cheese process and a few pieces of pieces of cheese making memorabilia. It is a basically a cheese emporium containing an all you can eat buffet of cheese that you can taste for free and purchase as souvenirs for home.
And if you are feeling particularly touristy, on the blocks along the museums are the plenty of open-air, canal-side cafes
5. Vrolik Museum:
The Vrolik museum is a fascinating museum of the macabre.
If you are an avid Stephen King fan and a lover of horror movies like The Texas Chain Massacre, this museum should make you feel right at home.
The Vrolik museum houses a tremendous collection of human body parts, skeletons, skulls, embryos, aborted fetuses, preserved specimens showing birth defects including Siamese twins and cyclopean babies.
This museum is highly recommended and should be viewed on an empty stomach.
Image Credit: IAmstardam, Whilethepaintdries, LarrySpeck, Iamstedam, Atlas Obscura