We will be staying in Ghent for a few days and did manage to reserve an afternoon visit to see the Vermeer show at the Rijksmuseum. For those of you who have already visited Vermeer, what were the lines like to get in for your timed entrance? I am wondering how much time to plan on and then working backwards, which train arrival time to set. We currently have tickets leaving Ghent at 6:27 am, which would put us in Amsterdam at 8:45. However as we'll have only flown into Brussels from the U.S. two days before the train trip, 6:27 am is now seeming to be brutal, especially since I just found out that you can only see the rest of the Rijksmuseum after your timed entry for Vermeer and not before. Thank you. Cheryl
Posted by
The Netherlands
1330 posts
There are no long lines. You show up on the time mentioned on your ticket and you can go right in. There can be some short lines for security and at the actual ticket check, but that’s it.
Posted by
OP
Connecticut
6 posts
That's amazing! Thank you!
Posted by
The Netherlands
1330 posts
I’m glad you find it amazing, but that’s just how these time slots work in museums in the Netherlands. The purpose of the time slots is to drastically reduce the lines outside museums. The Anne Frank house especially used to be very bad with lines circling all around the block. They already switched to a system in which everyone had to book a time slot online in advance well before COVID. Other museums followed their example during COVID. Now it’s just a matter of booking a time slot and making sure you’re at the museum when your time slot starts.
Posted by
Chicago
8069 posts
We went to Anne Frank House many years ago and had a timed reservation. When we got there, there were two long long lines. ONe was people without tickets and the other with tickets. I asked someone in that line about timed entry and they insisted we had to get to the back of that line because 'we all have tickets.' That seemed wrong to me, so I walked up to a door with no line and motioned to the guy inside and showed him my ticket and he motioned us in and we had no wait at all.
A very moving experience. Sickening that they came so close until betrayed by a terrible person. The space they lived in was quite well kitted out and spacious. I was surprised at how big and comfortable it was. (obviously not compared to being free and in their own house -- but considering the horror, it was a nice space although they had to be quiet during the day when people were working in the building.)
Posted by
Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, USA
13976 posts
On one of the recent Vermeer threads someone posted this short clip from the Rijksmuseum on "Your Route to the Vermeer Exhibition" in case you didn't see it.
Posted by
OP
Connecticut
6 posts
Thank you for the link! I did see some comments about it in the forums here, so I've got it earmarked so we can watch it. We re-watched the film, Girl With the Pearl Earring. Also picked up The Last Vermeer and Tim's Vermeer from the library, so we've got some ground to cover. When The Girl With the Pearl Earring was at the Frick in NYC a few years ago, my husband and I got tickets for that, took the train in to the city, and waited for maybe 2 hours in a line that wrapped around a city block. It was dark, raw, rainy, windy, even sleety! Very long line and long wait, which is why I asked my question here. That was pre-pandemic but I do believe it was a timed ticket of some sort.
I don't think we'll make it to the Anne Frank museum this time. This trip up from Ghent with a return the next day will just be a little sampling of Amsterdam for future reference. We are visiting Ghent and Bruges before we head to Ljubljiana for the R S Adriatic Tour! First R S Tour, though we've used his books for 20 years!