8 Best Sights in Plantage, Amsterdam

Taking advantage of 300 years of historical links between Amsterdam and St. Petersburg, the directors of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg and of the Nieuwe Kerk museum in Amsterdam chose this spot on the Amstel for a new outpost. In 2009, the final refurbishment stage of the former home for the elderly Amstelhof was completed, with high white interiors and smaller side rooms connected by long unadorned corridors. The amount of exhibition space is actually much smaller than you might imagine from the outside (or from the entry price), but the quality of the shows is generally excellent.

The name of this zoo, which was the first of its kind in the Netherlands, is short for Natura Artis Magistra (Nature Is the Teacher of the Arts). Founded in 1838, the park has more than 900 species of animals, more than 200 species of trees, a butterfly pavilion, an insectarium, and beautiful 19th-century architecture, of which the aquarium is a fine example. The Micropia, the world's first museum dedicated to microbes, has lots of interactive exhibits. Open 365 days a year.

By the beginning of the 18th century, Amsterdam had a virtual monopoly in the diamond industry in Europe, so when diamonds were discovered in South Africa in 1869, there was a windfall for Amsterdam's Jewish communities, a third of whom worked in the diamond trade. Built in 1879, Gassan Diamonds was once home to the Boas diamond-polishing factory, the largest in the world, where 357 diamond-polishing machines processed around 8,000–10,000 carats of rough diamonds per week. Today, Gassan offers polishing and grading demonstrations and free hour-long tours, in more than 27 languages, of the building and its glittering collection of diamonds and jewelry.

This wonderful botanical garden was originally laid out as a medicinal herb garden in 1638 by the Amsterdam City Council before the collection expanded to include exotic plants from the East India Company's forays into foreign lands. A total of 4,000 species are represented in the ornamental gardens and the three-climate greenhouse. There's also a butterfly house. One of the treasures is a 300-year-old Eastern Cape giant cycad, perhaps the oldest potted plant in the world. The orangery houses a charming café terrace—one of the most peaceful places in the city to enjoy a cup of coffee. In fact, the Hortus harbors the leafy descendants of the first coffee plants ever introduced into Europe. Hoping to end the Arabian Peninsula's expensive monopoly on coffee, a Dutch merchant stole a coffee plant from Mocha, Yemen, and presented it to the Hortus in 1706, where it flourished in the greenhouse. Its offspring played an important role in spreading coffee production around the world.

Four Ashkenazi synagogues (or shuls, in Yiddish), dating to the 17th and 18th centuries, were combined with glass-and-steel constructions in 1987 to create this warm and impressive museum commemorating four centuries in the history of the Jewish people in Amsterdam and the Netherlands. Back in the 17th century, Ashkenazi Jews fled the pogroms in Central and Eastern Europe. Sephardic Jews had already settled here---and each community built its own synagogues. There are four of them in this complex: the Neie Sjoel (New Synagogue, 1752) shows the history of Jews in the Netherlands from 1900 until today; the Grote Sjoel (Great Synagogue, 1671) presents the tenets of Judaism as well as the history of Jews in the Netherlands before 1900; the Obbene Sjoel (Upstairs Synagogue, 1685) is home to the children's museum; and the Dritt Sjoel (Third Synagogue, 1700/1778) houses the museum's offices. The museum is also home to one of the city's few kosher cafés. Whether you tour the collections or regular exhibitions, check out the excellent tours of the Jewish Quarter conducted by this museum.

Inspired by Jerusalem's Temple of Solomon, Elias Bouman designed this noted synagogue between 1671 and 1675 for the Sephardic community, the first Jews to settle in the Netherlands. They were descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jews—Sepharad is Hebrew for the Iberian peninsula—escaping the Inquisition or forced conversion to Catholicism in the 15th and 16th centuries. When it was completed, it was the largest synagogue in Europe, and its spare, elegantly proportioned wood interior has remained virtually unchanged through the centuries. It is still magically illuminated by hundreds of candles in immense candelabra during services. The buildings around the synagogue house the world-famous Ets Haim (Tree of Life) library, the oldest still-functioning Jewish library in the world.

The country's largest ethnographic museum was first built to educate the Dutch about their colonial history in the East and West Indies, but today it excels in hands-on exhibits covering all non-Western cultures. A gorgeous tiered atrium is rich with wood, marble, and gilt, and displays many, many pieces of antiquity, art, and musical instruments made accessible through workshops and in playful, simulated villages and bazaars, which convey the full sensory experience of life in the former Dutch Indies, the Middle East, India, Africa, and Latin America. There's also a park-facing patio where you can enjoy globally inspired food from the café.

At the Tropenmuseum Junior, children can experience other cultures through programs involving art, dance, song, and sometimes cooking. There are weekend activities such as drawing, building, and crafts for toddlers and preschoolers and their parents in the Kartini Wing. For preschoolers and over, there are special children's routes through the museum and events on Wednesday afternoon and holidays. Most children's activities are in Dutch.

From May 14, 1940, to May 5, 1945, the Netherlands was occupied by Nazi Germany, and this museum looks at the population's response—who resisted and how. All forms of resistance are covered: strikes, forging documents, hiding and escape (such as the Paris route), armed resistance, and espionage. Personal documents, interviews, and sound fragments offer a rich context that not only conveys what occupied life really felt like but also challenges visitors to consider their own behavior and choices today. The Resistance Museum Junior focuses on the stories of four eyewitnesses: Eva, Henk, Jan, and Nelly, who were between 9 and 14 years old during the war (the same age group as the target audience). The children's museum gives the concept of "resistance" a positive twist, using examples from World War II to make kids aware of the importance of mutual respect, freedom, the fragility of democracy, and their own responsibility in dealing with discrimination and persecution. Displays also show how some of today's main Dutch newspapers and magazines, like Het Parool (The Password) and Vrij Nederland (Free Netherlands), began as illegal underground newsletters.