Although we only had a couple of days in Amsterdam, one of the places that we wanted to visit was the Rijksmuseum.  It is the Dutch National Museum and is dedicated to the arts and history of the Netherlands. It is also the largest art museum in the country and it displays more than 8,000 pieces. The building itself is actually quite beautiful and first opened its doors in 1885.

There were a couple of things that we found quite interesting and made visiting this museum a little different than most other museums that we have visited. First was that there is a working library within the museum where people can read some of the literature that they have collected. Obviously, it isn’t a lending library and we aren’t sure what credentials are required to get access to the library, but it was interesting to see. The other thing was that they have an active display of art restoration in progress. Like everything else in life, art restoration has become extremely high-tech.

Of all of the artwork in the museum, The Night Watch by Rembrandt is probably the most famous. There are other famous Rembrandt paintings there as well, but this painting is definitely given a place of honor. We didn’t spend as much time in the museum as we would have hoped to, but we really enjoyed everything that we saw. The Rijksmuseum is definitely worth visiting if you have the opportunity to travel to Amsterdam.