Van Gogh Museum

The Van Gogh Museum is the most emotionally powerful museum in Amsterdam, and for many visitors it is the highlight of the trip. It holds the world's largest collection of Vincent van Gogh's work — around two hundred paintings, some five hundred drawings and many of his letters — which came largely from his brother Theo's family and opened to the public in 1973 in a modernist building by Gerrit Rietveld on Museumplein. An elliptical exhibition wing by the Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa was added in 1999, and a glass entrance hall now links the two. What makes the museum so affecting is the way it tells a life. Van Gogh painted for barely a decade before his death in 1890 at the age of thirty-seven, and the galleries follow him from the dark, earthy peasant scenes of Nuenen, with The Potato Eaters as their centrepiece, through the brightening palette of his Paris years, to the blazing colour of Arles — Sunflowers, The Yellow House, The Bedroom — and the swirling, anguished landscapes of Saint-Rémy and Auvers-sur-Oise, including Wheatfield with Crows. Along the way you meet the artists who shaped him, from the Japanese printmakers he collected to Gauguin and the Impressionists, and the letters to Theo give the whole story a human voice. Temporary exhibitions in the Kurokawa wing explore his influence and contemporaries. Entry is only by timed ticket, sold online through the museum's own site and its official resellers, and there is no ticket desk at the door, so book before you travel: weekend and holiday slots go first. Under-18s enter free.

The collection is arranged over several floors around a central atrium, and the route broadly follows Van Gogh's life from the ground floor upward, with self-portraits introducing the man before the chronology begins. Give yourself time on the upper floors, where the Arles and Saint-Rémy paintings hang: the colour is overwhelming in person in a way no reproduction prepares you for. The multimedia guide, available in many languages for a small extra charge, is excellent here, because the letters and the stories behind each painting are what turn a gallery visit into a biography. There is a dedicated family route and a children's version of the guide. Photography is limited in the galleries, which makes the atmosphere calmer than in many big museums.

Visiting well: timed tickets are the only way in, and slots on weekends, holidays and summer days can sell out weeks ahead, so book as soon as your dates are fixed. Early morning and the last couple of hours before closing are the quietest; mid-morning and early afternoon are busiest. The museum keeps occasional evening openings with music and events, which are a sociable way to see the collection. Security checks apply, large bags go in lockers, and the café and shop are in the entrance hall. If you hold a Museumkaart, the Dutch museum pass, you still need to reserve a time slot. The museum is fully accessible, with lifts to every floor.

Around the museum, the Rijksmuseum is two minutes away across the lawn of Museumplein, and the Stedelijk, the city's modern art museum, is next door. A Van Gogh morning followed by a Rijksmuseum afternoon is the classic Museum Quarter day, though some visitors find two big collections in one day too much and prefer to split them over two mornings. The Vondelpark is a short walk west for a picnic or a coffee on a terrace, and the tram network makes the museum easy to reach from Centraal or Leidseplein. Families with older children often find this the most memorable museum of the trip, because Van Gogh's story is so clearly told; with toddlers, keep the visit short and focused on the brightest paintings.