3 Day Pass Amsterdam City Card

Today we got our 72 hour pass through I Amsterdam City Card

Brilliant; included entry to (or as I now like to refer to it to make me feel like I am getting something for nothing) gave us free entry into lots of museums, plus free city wide transport and a free canal cruise.

As we started very late in the day and only had a couple of hours before everything shut, I decided to logically do the one thing that we actually could have done until 8.00pm - the canal cruise.

Now, if I'd been smart, I would have done a museum first and then done this afterwards, because all the museums close at 5pm sharp. But I'm an idiot, so we only had 45 minutes left to see the whole of the Maritime Museum.

The museum has recently been refurbished and it was so impressive from the entrance; the ceiling is hard to photograph, but was the most beautiful iron work and glass structure I have ever seen.

This boat was fantastic; full size and you can go into all the different rooms on board; plus up on top and around the masts. There is a security guard there to make sure that no one tries to do a Jack Sparrow. I could have spent an hour on here alone, they have re-created everything so well...they slope of the floor makes you feel a little sea sick even though you're not moving. It's all very well done.

All of the displays in the various rooms were really 

clearly laid out; this was a large glass cabinet with several very large model ships. The museum is broken up into four areas; North South East and West. All easily accessible by wheelchair. 

Most of the exhibitions were interactive in some way or another. One of the most interesting parts was in a painting exhibit showing ships during battle. On a very very large touch screen in the middle of the room, you could zoom through a magnified version of one of the better known paintings. When you 'touched' on a certain area..the actual area on the real painting would be lit up and an explanation or interpretation of that part of the piece would be displayed.

To get to the Het Scheepvaartmuseum and VOC-schip Amsterdam, take the BUS number 22, 42 or 43 in the direction of MUIDERPOORTSTATION and get off at Kadijksplein. BE CAREFUL CROSSING THE ROAD.