Page 131 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide 2016 - Amsterdam

Plantage ❮❮ 129

A DAY IN PLANTAGE
Het
Scheepvaartmuseum
Nieuwe Herengracht
Verzetsmuseum
Planetarium
Artis
Hortus
Green, copper-clad NEMO Botanicus
Aquarium
It features a range of interactive
displays geared towards the MORNING
entertainment and education of
children. Favourite exhibits include Start your day among the
“Soap Bubbles” and “Chain Reaction” cannons, models, figure heads,
on the ground floor, or “Take a maps and instru ments of the Het
Scheepvaartmuseum (see p127),
journey through the Mind”. The 30-m then revive yourself at the
(90-ft), green-copper building, pleasant ground-floor café. If you
designed by Italian architect Renzo secretly hanker after a ship -in-a-
Piano in 1997, resembles the bottle, a cutlass paper knife or
upturned prow of a ship and forms other objects with a nautical
an elevated hood over the road theme, visit the museum shop
tunnel beneath the River IJ (see p60). before you leave. Outside, take a
look around the Amsterdam, the
Hollandsche
9 full-size replica of an 18th-
century East Indiaman.
Schouwburg
MAP F4 • Plantage Middenlaan 24 Take a walk down Nieuwe
• Tram 9, 14 • 020 531 0310 Herengracht to the historic
• Open 11am–5pm daily Hortus Botanicus botanical
gardens. Admire the exotic
• Closed 27 Apr, Yom Kippur, Rosh plants in the early 20th-century
Hashanah • www.jhm.nl/en glass palmhouse and discover
During the Nazi occupation, this some of the rare species
former theatre was used as an collected around the world
assembly-point for thousands of by the East India Company.
Jews. Behind an intact façade, a Grab lunch at the café.
garden has been created around a AFTERNOON
basalt monument on the site of the
auditorium. Family names of 6,700 After lunch, you could make your
Dutch Jews are engraved in a way to Plantage Kerklaan and the
memorial hall to the 104,000 who Verzetsmuseum. A visit here is
were exterminated. definitely worthwhile, if
harrowing. Afterwards, blow the
Hermitage
0 cobwebs away by spending the
rest of the afternoon at Artis (see
MAP Q6 • Amstel 51 • Tram 4,
plan gives you feeding times, as
9, 14 • 020 530 8755 • Open p127). For a few euros, the zoo
10am–5pm daily • Closed 27 Apr, well as pinpointing the two
25 Dec • Admission charge museums and the Aquarium.
• www.hermitage.nl/en Head back towards the main
This building, formerly a home for entrance, where there is a café
elderly women, now houses a branch and a shop selling goods with a
wildlife theme. If there is still
of the magnificent State Hermitage time left in the day, you could
Museum in St. Petersburg. Art works finish your explorations with a
from the mother collection are quick dash around the solar
shown at the Amsterdam Hermitage system at the Planetarium.
in themed exhibitions.
See map on p126
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