Teylers Museum, an 18th-century cabinet of curiosities

The oldest museum in the Netherlands opened in 1784 beside the river Spaarne and has kept its Oval Room almost intact: wooden display cases with fossils, minerals and scientific machines, under skylight. Further on are fossil rooms with mammoth skulls and marine reptiles, physics instruments with enormous electrical generators, coins and a collection of drawings by Rembrandt, Michelangelo and Raphael that is exhibited in rotation.

It is open Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00 to 17:00, at Spaarne 16. Children aged 6 to 17 pay only €2.50, so it is a very good family visit, especially if it rains.