SIX QUIRKY DUTCH MUSEUMS

Teylers Museum. Polished wood and creaky floors – the way a good museum used to be.

There are usually queues at Amsterdam’s wonderful Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum and the Anne Frank House, and for good reason.

But The Netherlands has a plethora of other smaller, fascinating museums of things we never knew we were interested in…until now.

EISE EISINGA’S INVENTION – a Friesian marvel

You may think this is just another 18th century room with a bed in a cupboard. You’d be wrong.

‘I know we’re a bit cramped for space, darling, what with the kids sleeping in a drawer under our bed, but I have a new hobby. I want to build a planetarium in our living room ceiling.’

Without the aid of a computer, electricity or an education past primary school level, Eise Eisinga did just that. It took him from 1774 till 1781 to build a wooden, clockwork-powered working model of the Solar System. It’s now World Heritage listed, and it’s easily the most extraordinary thing we’ve seen in Friesland, in the northern Netherlands.