© Mashable
Brilio.net/en - You can go down the canal on the boat and hit the flower markets, buy weird smelling cheese in the particular shops, and also add the recently-reopened Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum and the Anne Frank House to the itinerary of the most first-time Amsterdam holidaygoers. But if you have more days to spend in Amsterdam, you may want to see more peculiar sides of the city. Just give these odd museums and attractions a try!
Step away from free-sex and drugs. Instead, you can pay the giggle-stimulating Sexmuseum (admission 4, about US$4.45) and the Erotic Museum (7, US$7.75) in the Red Light District a visit. Absolutely not for those who travel with child! In addition, Amsterdam is a home to a branch of museums displaying the history of hash, marijuana and hemp (9, US$10) named the Hash, Marihuana & Hemp Museum.
Cat-lovers will gladly flock to the Cat Cabinet or KattenKabinet (7, US$7.75), which take place in a historic home on Amsterdams Herengrach canal. This unique museum (built in memory of the founders cat, named John Pierpont Morgan) has several rooms filled with paintings, sculptures, photos, posters, playbills, drawings and other adorable cat images. Purrrrfect!
Watch the plethora of bags and purses date back centuries at the Museum of Bags and Purses (12.50, US$14). The oldest bag on display is a 16th-century goatskin bag with 18 secret compartments. This type of bag was worn by a man as a belt pouch in the days before built-in pockets in clothes were created.
The museums vast collections includes more than 5,000 variety of pouches, pockets, clutches, suitcases and bags, which tells stories of fashion, art, history and politics from a past world. They are made out of everything: from leather and tortoise shell to luxurious woven fabrics and plastics.
After being mesmerized by thousands of bags, you may want a realxing activity in Amsterdams famous canals. Youre lucky! This city is home to 2,400 houseboats moored along its canals. Pay the Houseboat Museum a visit to find out what living aboard a 100 year-old converted cargo ship was like in the 1950s.
To add more legends to your holiday, you can visit a shrine of John & Yoko Suite at the Hilton Amsterdam. The room is available for tours, when its not booked for the night. Of course, you need to set an appointment in advance.
Suite #702 was a room where John Lennon and Yoko Ono spent a week-long Bed-In for Peace between March 25 and 31, 1969 to protest against the Vietnam War. The presidential suite has since been updated, with a selfie-friendly bed-in the original spot.
The room also features a guitar, song lyrics, photos and other memorabilia to John and Yoko (after Yokos input and approval). A night in the suite starts at 1799 (about US$2,000), but couples who book their wedding at the hotel get a free one-night stay in the suite.
The Amsterdam adventure is far from over! You may want to satisfy your thirst for biology by visiting the animals and sea-life in Amsterdams Artis Royal Zoo. Then head next door to Micropia, an activity-filled museum dedicated to the millions of invisible-to-the-naked-eye microbes and micro-organisms that live in our bodies and out in the world!
Micropia via harriet baskas
To better show how many microorganisms nested in your mouth, skin and, you know, human-waste, the museum will make you discover that everything from sewing needles, toothbrushes and sink sponges are perfect breeding grounds for E. coli and other bacteria that become unseen roommates (admission: 14, or about US$16). You may want to bring your own hand-sanitizing gel.
Okay, enough biology. Now its time for a more chilling side of Amsterdam by visiting a municipal cemetery in the city. Tucked behind the cafeteria at De Nieuwe Ooster, Dutch Funeral Museum (7, US$7.75) offers a tasteful look at death and death rituals. Inside are seven coffins, and each one is displaying explanations of how different cultures and religions bid farewell and bury their dead.
Dutch Funeral Museum viatripzilla
If coffins and death got you craving for more, a visit to a collection of anatomical anomalies and medical malformations put together in the 1800s may be for you.
Not for the fainthearted nor the squeamish, the Museum Vrolik at the University of Amsterdams Academic Medical Centre displays contain skeletons of people and animals, sliced-up body parts and jars filled with everything from deformed fetuses and dried penises. You can also spot the Chinese lotus foot, tattooed skin samples, and examples of corset livers, a byproduct of the tight corsets women (and some men) laced themselves into during the 19th century in order to obtain a fashionably small waistline. This daredevil-dedicated museum is free of admission, yet accepting donation.
Source:Mashable
(brl/tis)
