Introducing a famous museum dedicated to Dutch maritime heritage

Photography of Dutch maritime heritage

Because of the great importance of the sea in their history, some European cities decided to organize a museum dedicated to the link between the sea and the human and economic growth of the city.

Amsterdam, the Dutch capital, is in this case. I visited the Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum, or Dutch National Maritime Museum in English, last year. The name of the museum is not really adapted to the collections because the main part of items is linked to Amsterdam.

The Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum is situated near the Amsterdam Central Station. Collections take place since the opening, in 1973, in a former national naval warehouse, built more than three hundred and fifty years ago, in 1656.

The port of Amsterdam is important in Europe : it’s the fourth fret port after ports of Rotterdam, Antwerp and Hamburg. Moreover, an interesting room in the museum presents the trip of goods from the cargo to the store. People are placed in a 360°-view as a container during the entry of the cargo in the port, unloading, the trip between different terminals, loading on trucks…

In the next room, a big model representing the today’s port of Amsterdam. It’s really vast nowadays, whereas the historic port was smaller, because of the growth of fret traffic.

But the most interesting rooms of the museum are dedicated to old items used during XVIth and XVIIe Centuries, when The Netherlands was one of the most powerful countries in Europe. Lots of globes permit us to understand how navigators saw the world at this time, and we can remark that globes changed with frequent discoveries.

We can also see some navigation tools like azimuth compasses, sextants, quartermaster’s whistles. Some old maps are visible just next to these items.

Others rooms present old paintings that represent old Amsterdam’s port, or naval war scenes. These paintings prove that former societies were curious and fascinated by maritime activities, especially when the world has been enlarged after the discovery of America. For us, paintings are precious to complete our knowledge of old boats and old navigation methods.

Indeed, painting can be at the root of conception of vessel models that are numerous in the museum. The most important model is called Amsterdam. His size ? Almost fifty meters ! This model is, in fact, the reconstitution of a real vessel used by the Dutch East India Company just for a few months between 1748 and 1749, before a tragic shipwreck on the bank of Bulverhythe (near Hastings) because of the crew’s mutiny.

The new Amsterdam is alongside just behind the museum. It’s a really good idea because people can embark on the vessel, visit the different decks, from the hold with false food, merchandises and… rats, to the main deck. The top of the visit is the captain’s cabin, that is really more comfortable in comparison with little bunks reserved to the crew. This vessel will never sail around the world, but the Amsterdam can make it clear to us that life on board was really hard, with many particular tasks to do for crew.

The only one problem of the museum is the ticket price: fifteen euro for a three-hour visit. Collections are beautiful, but I’m sure that that price can incite some people, foreign tourists in particular, not to visit the museum.

Next summer, I may go to Antwerp just for a few days. If I do, I will visit the new municipal museum, that retraces the five last centuries of the city’s history, obviously connected to the sea : the museum was built in front of the Napoleon dock !

Official website is: http://www.hetscheepvaartmuseum.nl/