Reopening season: visiting Amsterdam's museums in summer 2021

The first day back in the Rijksmuseum

I had been waiting fourteen months. The Rijksmuseum, closed since March 2020 and reopened in stages through 2021, was finally fully open to visitors with timed-entry tickets in early June. I booked a slot for the first available Saturday morning and spent the train journey reading the collection catalogue in a way I had never bothered to do when the museum was simply always there.

The Rijksmuseum entry ticket was still the advance-booking, timed-slot format that the museum had been using since its pre-pandemic days, with the difference that the slot sizes were smaller. Where the museum normally accommodates thousands of visitors simultaneously, the 2021 protocols kept numbers lower and introduced a one-way flow through certain galleries. The result was an experience that I found considerably better than any pre-pandemic visit: I stood in front of Rembrandt’s Night Watch for three minutes without anyone walking between me and the painting.

That may be the thing worth saying plainest: the visitor-managed museums of 2021 were, in terms of the actual experience of looking at art, better than they had been in the summer peak of 2019. Whether that was worth the tradeoff of the months they were closed is a different question, but the timed-entry model that the museums retained long after the specific pandemic protocols lifted has genuinely improved the core experience.

What had changed at the Van Gogh Museum

The Van Gogh Museum on Museumplein reopened with similarly timed entry. The Van Gogh Museum timed entry ticket had been available online for years before the pandemic, but in 2021 it was the only way in — no walk-up queue, no hoping for cancellations. The booking process is straightforward and worth doing well in advance; June slots were selling out within days of becoming available.

What I noticed most at the Van Gogh Museum was the audio guide. I had done it twice before and found it competent but unremarkable. In 2021, with fewer people on each floor, the audio guide worked differently — you could move at the pace the guide suggested without having to pause for people in front of you or skip sections because you were being moved along. The museum is not large, but it contains multitudes if you’re willing to follow the chronology carefully. The paintings from the Borinage period, the dark Dutch phase, the Nuenen works — these get overshadowed by the Provençal paintings that appear on every postcard, but they are where Van Gogh’s development as a painter is actually visible.

The Van Gogh Museum guide covers the collection in detail, including how to navigate the galleries in the time you have.

The smaller museums: underrated and uncrowded

The reopening period was also a good moment to visit the museums that never had crowds in the first place. Two in particular stood out.

The Willet-Holthuysen Museum — a canal house on the Herengracht preserved as it was in the 19th century, with original furniture, silverware, and decorations — is one of Amsterdam’s most overlooked institutions. It tells the story of a wealthy Amsterdam family across the 17th through 19th centuries in a way that the Rijksmuseum, for all its grandeur, can’t quite replicate. Walking through someone’s actual house, preserved in the state they left it, is a different kind of historical experience.

The Rembrandt House Museum on the Jodenbreestraat is similarly undervisited relative to how good it is. The house where Rembrandt lived for almost twenty years and where he produced many of his major works has been reconstructed — after some scholarly detective work — to look as it did in his time, including a working printmaking studio where staff demonstrate the etching techniques Rembrandt used. This is one of Amsterdam’s most interesting museums for anyone curious about how art was actually made in the 17th century.

The hidden gem museums Amsterdam guide covers both of these and several others that get overlooked in the rush for the headline venues.

The museum quarter atmosphere in June

The Museum Quarter had a particular atmosphere in June 2021 that I remember clearly. The cafés had finally opened for outdoor seating; the Vondelpark was full in the way it had been full throughout lockdown, but now with a different energy because people were going somewhere. The Museumplein itself — the large open square between the Rijksmuseum and the Stedelijk — had its usual dog-walkers and in-line skaters, now supplemented by people sitting on the grass eating lunch between museum visits.

There was a sense of the city being genuinely glad to have visitors back. Not performatively glad — Amsterdammers are not particularly effusive — but the small exchanges with museum staff and café owners had a warmth that I associated with relief rather than professional service culture.

Practical notes from the 2021 experience

Several things I learned from the 2021 museum visits remain relevant now:

Book timed-entry tickets immediately for the Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh, and Anne Frank House. These three still sell out in advance during summer. If you’re visiting in July or August, book as soon as your travel dates are confirmed.

The I amsterdam City Card does not cover Van Gogh or Anne Frank. This was true before the pandemic and remained true after. The I amsterdam City Card guide explains what it does and doesn’t include and when the maths work in your favour.

The less-visited museums have shorter booking windows. The Rembrandt House, the Willet-Holthuysen, the Stedelijk in its quieter periods — these often have same-week availability. For a first-time visitor trying to balance planning flexibility with the security of having tickets, mixing one pre-booked headliner with one spontaneous visit to a smaller institution works well.

Guided tours add real value at the Rijksmuseum. The collection is large enough that a two-hour unguided visit can feel both rushed and somehow incomplete. The Rijksmuseum masterpieces guided small group tour covers the essential works with enough context to make them cohere. At maximum 12 people, it also doesn’t produce the herd-following experience of the large commercial tours.

What the reopening told us about what we’d missed

The June 2021 visit confirmed something I had suspected during the months the museums were closed: the absence of access to great art was a real loss, not a theoretical one. Standing in front of Vermeer’s The Milkmaid — a small painting, quieter than its reputation suggests — I was aware of having genuinely missed the experience of being in a room with it. That sounds obvious in retrospect but felt like a discovery at the time.

The skip the line museums Amsterdam guide covers all the current booking strategies for the major institutions. The best museums Amsterdam guide is the starting point if you’re trying to prioritise a limited number of visits.

The museums are all fully open now, the pandemic protocols are in the past, and the timed-entry system has become the permanent standard. Book ahead. It’s better this way.