Rijksmuseum or Van Gogh Museum: which to choose with half a day, and how the timed tickets work

Vincent van Gogh died in July 1890, having sold almost nothing. His paintings, several hundred of them, passed to his brother Theo, an art dealer in Paris, who died six months later. They then belonged to Theo's widow, Jo van Gogh-Bonger, who was twenty-eight and had a baby son.

She took them home to the Netherlands. Over the next thirty years she lent them to exhibitions, sold a few with care, and edited the letters Vincent had written to Theo, which were published in 1914. Her son kept the collection together and in 1962 passed it to a foundation, and the museum built for it opened in 1973. That is why the largest collection of Van Gogh in the world stands a few minutes on foot from the national museum of the Netherlands, and why visitors with half a day in Amsterdam ask the same question: which one?

Two museums on one lawn

Museumplein is a long lawn south of the canal ring. The Rijksmuseum closes its northern end: a building of 1885 by Pierre Cuypers, with a public passage through the middle that cyclists use all day. The Van Gogh Museum is on the western side, in a plain block of 1973 and a rounded wing added in 1999. Beside it are the Stedelijk Museum, for modern art and design, and the small private Moco Museum.

Both of the large museums admit visitors by start time, booked in advance. In spring and summer neither should be left to the day itself.

What the Rijksmuseum is

It is the museum of the whole country: eight centuries of Dutch art and history, some eight thousand objects in eighty rooms. The heart of it is on the upper floor. The Gallery of Honour is a long hall of side chapels holding Vermeer's Milkmaid and Little Street, Rembrandt's Jewish Bride, Frans Hals and Jan Steen, and it leads to the Night Watch of 1642, which has a hall of its own. For some years that painting has been examined and restored where it hangs, inside a glass enclosure, so you may see it through glass.

Vermeer's Milkmaid, painted about 1660, in the Gallery of Honour. Photo: reproduction of a painting in the public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Around this are Delft blue pottery, dolls' houses made for rich merchants' wives, ship models, an Asian pavilion and the old library. Two hours are enough for the famous rooms if you go straight upstairs. Three to four is a comfortable visit.

The library of the Rijksmuseum, which visitors look into from a balcony. Photo: Sebastian Koppehel, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.

What the Van Gogh Museum is

It is one life, told in order, floor by floor. The dark Dutch years end with the Potato Eaters of 1885. In Paris the colours brighten, and he paints himself again and again because he cannot pay models. Then come Arles, with the Sunflowers, the Bedroom and the Yellow House; the asylum at Saint-Rémy, where he painted Almond Blossom for the birth of his nephew, the baby of the story above; and the last weeks at Auvers, with Wheatfield with Crows.

Almond Blossom, painted in 1890 for the birth of the nephew who later founded the museum. Photo: reproduction of a painting in the public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The collection has about two hundred of his paintings and five hundred drawings, of which a part is on show. Two things people expect are not here: The Starry Night is in New York, and Café Terrace at Night is in the Kröller-Müller Museum, in the east of the country. A visit takes an hour and a half to two hours. The rooms are small for the numbers, and the middle of the day is crowded.

The rounded wing of the Van Gogh Museum, added in 1999, seen from the lawn. Photo: Sebastian Koppehel, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.

Which one, with half a day

• Choose the Rijksmuseum if you want breadth: Rembrandt, Vermeer, the building itself, and the story of a small country that was briefly the richest in Europe. It asks for more time and a plan.
• Choose the Van Gogh Museum if you would sooner follow one story from start to finish. It is shorter, easier to do well, and less tiring.
• If one of them is sold out, it is usually the Van Gogh Museum, which is much smaller. The Rijksmuseum is the easier one to get into at short notice.
• Both in one day is possible. Book the two slots at least three hours apart, take the Rijksmuseum first while you are fresh, and eat in between.

How the timed tickets work

• The time is an entry time. Arrive within the window printed on the ticket. Once inside you can stay until closing.
• Book online. The Van Gogh Museum has for years sold its tickets online only, and the Rijksmuseum asks every visitor to reserve a start time. Do not count on a desk at the door.
• Under eighteen is free at both, and young visitors still need a ticket with a time on it.
• The quiet hours are the first slot of the morning and the last two hours of the afternoon.

Opening hours are on our pages for the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum.

Reading the partner's listings

• The Rijksmuseum ticket with a highlights audio tour and a city walk includes entry at a time you choose, commentary on the main works in the partner's app, and an audio walk afterwards towards the eastern side of the old centre.
• The Rijksmuseum highlights audio tour on its own has no ticket. You book entry yourself.
• The Van Gogh Museum ticket is entry at a time slot and nothing else. A second listing adds an audio tour in the app, with directions from room to room, and a third is that audio tour without the ticket.
• The Moco Museum ticket with a city audio tour is entry to Moco and an audio walk through Amsterdam. The partner's commentary does not cover the inside of the museum.

Other listings carry Van Gogh's name and are different places elsewhere in the city, such as an immersive light show. If it is the paintings you want, the title has to say Van Gogh Museum. For the audio tours, bring earphones.

These are the Museumplein tickets and audio tours our partner sells, with today's prices:

• on WeGoTrip Attraction Tickets Amsterdam: Moco Museum Ticket and City Discovery Audio Tour 2 hours4.2 (283) Book on WeGoTripfrom308 kr
• on WeGoTrip Walking Tours Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum Ticket & Highlights Audio Tour with a City Walk 2 – 3.5 hours Book on WeGoTripfrom420 kr
• on WeGoTrip Skip The Line Tickets Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum Highlights Audio Tour 2 – 2.5 hours Book on WeGoTripfrom123 kr
• on WeGoTrip Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum Ticket Book on WeGoTripfrom365 kr

Sold and delivered by WeGoTrip. You book on their site at their price; Viaqui may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you.

What is free on Museumplein

The lawn, the passage under the Rijksmuseum, where musicians play for the echo, and the museum's formal gardens, with their sculptures and fountain, cost nothing. So does its great glass-roofed entrance hall, as far as the ticket barriers.

From Central Station, trams reach Museumplein in about a quarter of an hour. On foot it is half an hour, straight through the canal ring.

From here

The Stedelijk Museum is next door to the Van Gogh Museum, and the Concertgebouw faces the far end of the lawn. The Vondelpark is five minutes to the west. Ten minutes to the east is De Pijp, with the street market of Albert Cuypstraat. For the rest of Amsterdam, or a route through the country, open the trip planner for the Netherlands.

Cover photo: C messier, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.