The Museum:

The Rijksmuseum is Amsterdam's best visited museum with 1.2 million visitors a year. The impressive historic building was designed by architect Pierre Cuypers in 1885 and holds a collection of mainly Dutch Golden Age works. The most famous Rijksmuseum piece is Rembrandt van Rijn's Nachtwacht (Night Watch).

The Collection:

• 15th to 17th century
  Apart from the Night Watch and nineteen other Rembrandt works, the Rijksmuseum is best known for fellow 17th century artists such as Johannes Vermeer, Jan Steen, Hendrick Avercamp, Adriaen van Ostade and Frans Hals.
• 18th to 19th century
  The museum has a small collection of 18th century works, which was not a very productive era in Dutch art history. The following century 'though has delivered many excellent paintings - the extensive collection forces the museum to alternate the displayed works. All are centered around the three Schools: the Romantic School, the Hague School and the Amsterdam School. Barend Cornelis Koekkoek and Isaac Israëls are the first names that come to mind.
• Foreign masters
  Not on permanent display, but worth mentioning on account of the names: the Rijksmuseum's collection contains Italian, Spanish and Flemish (or should I say Southern-Netherlandish) masters. You can enjoy Pieter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, Lorenzo Monaco, Piero di Cosimo, Carlo Crivelli, Jacopo Tintoretto, Albrecht Dürer and Francisco Goya if you're lucky.

The Exhibitions:

When you're in the neigbourhood, you should even consider visiting the museum just for the exhibitions. These are quite interesting, as a small anthology might prove:

• Two Golden Ages. Masterpieces of Dutch and Danish painting.
• Zimmer Frei. The Netherlands and Germany after 1945.
• Rococo in the Netherlands.
• Surimono. Poetry & Image in the Japanese Print.
• Spearhead of History: 25 november 1975. The handover of sovereignity to Surinam.
• Rembrandt in various states. Etchings from the British Museum and the Rijksmuseum.
• Asser. A pioneer of Dutch photography.