When we just arrived in the Netherlands in 2018 I heard a lot of my homeschool friends mention this one particular museum: The “Nederlands Openlucht Museum” in Arnhem (Dutch Open Air Museum). Life was busy and we did a lot but we just didn’t get to visit this one. Finally, in the summer of 2021 we got a chance to visit this museum. We were happy to be able to move around again after starting the year with months of lockdown.
The Dutch Openlucht Museum is about a 1 hour and 28 minutes drive from Delft, and about 1 hour and 15 min from Amsterdam. However, I do think it’s worth a visit especially if you are going with kids.
The museum area is huge! There are about 100 historical buildings you can check out and you can also enter in and see them up close. When you arrive in the park, right in front of you, you immediately see a tram stop.
This is a historic tram that rides around the park and you can step out at each of the 6 destinations, which are: Entree, Landgoed (Estate), Lint-tuinen (Gardens), Platteland (Country), Dorp (Village) and Erven (Properties).
The park is huge and the kids can walk or run around freely. This felt so good especially after being locked up in the house for so long.
There is a lot to discover and you can actually enter in and look around. Some of the buildings have employees that give demonstrations and you can ask questions. For example the bakery, the boatyard or the fisherman’s cottage. It’s like a living history where you can hear and see how people used to live or how they used to do things.
The park is so grand that we didn’t get to do it all, but that doesn’t bother me. We really enjoyed ourselves and I would highly recommend this museum. Especially if you are visiting the Netherlands and want to see authentic buildings and get a feeling for how things used to be. This is a great park where your kids can walk around freely, there is a nice big play yard (which of course I forgot to take photos of), they learn some Dutch history in a fun way and it makes for a lovely day out. You do have to keep in mind the weather since it is an “open air” museum.
Let me know if this has been helpful for you. Until the next time!
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