Dutch are exceptional at mixing old and new in their museums

The Rijksmuseum; Het Scheepvaartmuseum; Anne Frank's House

The Dutch take their museums seriously.  With modern attitudes to display, a commitment to interactive education and a willingness to put high culture at the middle of their civic life, they make the most of an artistic tradition that saw them dominate the 17th century.  Their national wealth allowed them to  collect the best for centuries more.

The finest example of this is undoubtably the Rijksmuseum.  This neo-gothic pile at one end of the grassy sward of the Museumplein is the national art museum.  Last year it completed the largest renovation of any museum in the world, closing completely for a decade to allow a complete transformation.  (In the intervening years they set up a highlights collection in a side building; my visit described here.)

The most noticeable difference comes with glassed-over courtyards (like the British Museum) and an excavated modern space beneath them to create a new entry plaza (like the Louvre).  This grand mezzanine has all the necessary services: coat check, tickets, information, shop and restaurant.  In the last, you can recover your energy while watching the spectacle of the endless flow of bicyclists speeding through the cavernous gallery between the two wings.  Buy and print your tickets online and you're straight in, after flashing your bar code at a guard.

Once in the galleries, everything is sensitive, tasteful and roomy.  Everything manages to look traditional, yet modern at the same time.  Lighting is fantastic, whether natural or with sensitive artificial spots.  Colour schemes are all carefully selected to highlight what's in the room.  Paintings, decorative arts, furniture and the odd war trophy are arranged chronologically to tell the story of the Netherlands.  So a gallery on Dutch sea power combines paintings of naval battles and nautical commanders with a massive ship's model, the ornamental stern of a captured English flagship and the gold cup awarded to the Dutch Admiral who captured it.  The mix means every gallery is fresh and there's always a surprise around the corner, whether it's a giant doll's house, ornate table settings or the largest painting you've ever seen (of the battlefield at Waterloo).

While technology isn't obvious, the museum is flooded with free WiFi and the website is full of different routes through the collection, with pictures and descriptions.  So all you need is your phone and some time to guide yourself.  For a small sense of this mix of the traditional and modern, check out the extraordinary flashmob the museum put on to promote their re-opening last year.

The highlight for every tourist must be the Gallery of Honour, and the processional stairs and hallways around it.  All these rooms have been restored to their neo-gothic glory, stained glass and marvellously frescoed walls brought back after some modernist idiot whitewashed the whole thing last century.  It would be worth visiting for the architecture of these rooms alone.  But, of course, you're here for the art from the Golden Age.  And the renovation obligingly puts all the masterpieces in one gallery, stretching down from Rembrandt's Night Watch.  Paintings hang in logical groupings in alcoves, like side chapels leading up to the high altar presented by the country's most famous work of art.

Like any of the world's great museums, it's impossible to "do" the Rijksmuseum in one visit.  You can just about zip through the Golden Age … masterpieces and secondary galleries … in two hours.  But if you're not time constrained, consider a whole day.

A couple of hours will suffice at the national maritime museum, Het Scheepvaartmuseum, though that doesn't mean it's any less interesting.  In fact, if you want to see how technology and sensitive design can take a basic collection and make magic from it, go here.  I've never seen better.  There aren't many galleries, but they're all exciting.  Down the hall of ship's models "sail" more than a score of exquisite scale models in a glass corridor.  You can move video screens on sliding rods up and down, back and forth, picking out the model about which you want more info.  Once positioned, light comes up on your choice and more info displays on the video.  Upstairs, a gallery of ships' figureheads cuts through a virtual-effect sea complete with sound effects.  Next door, navigational equipment is displayed in a star gallery worthy of a high tech planetarium, introduced with a ships log that magically writes itself thanks to some trickery from the camera above.

A very worthy collection of nautical art is more straightforward, though still uses video tables for some
of the major paintings to allow you to move spotlights and display details.  Our only complaint about all this technology: though beautiful, it missed the opportunity to dive deep.  We frequently found ourselves wanting more detail than was on offer.

That was particularly true when we went outside to the copy of the 18th century Dutch East Indiaman moored next to the building.  For the child, or child at heart, it's a blast.  Scramble into cabins, hang off rigging, peak in crates in the hold, pretend to fire the cannons.  There's no help from display technology out here, and very little descriptive text.  A few fact filled, National Trust-style guides willing to share their information with visitors would have improved the experience considerably.  But if you're interested in history and boats, this is a hot spot, and ranks amongst the best maritime museums.  (It made the deeply disappointing Venetian naval museum look even worse, and saddened us as we contemplated what that collection could be if it had Amsterdam's money and designers.)

Clearly, mixing history with technology and modern relevance is a Dutch skill.  We even found it at the Anne Frank House.

I had managed to avoid this "must see" across all my trips.  Yes, I read the diary and was captivated by its romantic tragedy, like all early teenaged girls.  But I'd never wanted to visit the house.  First, because on a limited agenda I'd rather spend my time in the 17th or 18th century than the 20th.  Secondly, because I'm the type of person who tries to avoid heartbreak and emotional trauma, and I knew damned well that's what waited behind the inconspicuous facade.  But it was high on my husband's list, so I gave in.

It is as poignant, soul wrenching, traumatic and absolutely horrible as you can imagine.  Technology doesn't need to enhance that.  Just tell the story, then let people squeeze past the hidden-door-bookshelf and file respectfully through the little warren of rooms.  They are empty now, as Anne's father willed it.  But you see a model of how they would have been furnished before you go through.  It's enough.  The windows are blacked out.  People stay silent as if in church.  You hear every floorboard squeak, and imagine the pressure of staying up here day after day, avoiding the slightest sound.  Imagine the pressure of living at close quarters with so many.  Imagine the mounting stress on the friends … employees, really … who hid them.  And confront the horror of that final, early morning raid, so close to the end of the war, when Anne, her family and friends were swept away to something even worse.  Her father was the only survivor, and returned to make this place a monument to all she stood for.

The foundation that runs the house has acquired the modern building next door, thus has been able to provide the build up and the conclusion of the story in larger and more modern surroundings.  You emerge from the secret annex into a long room with videos of the detention camps, and an interview with a friend of Anne's … briefly reunited with her at the camp … who tells of her death.  Next floor down you see the diaries themselves, both Anne's originals and the many printed versions, and discover how her father learned of them, and turned them into what you see today.

Finally, once again, the Dutch ability to use technology to bring relevance kicked in.  You end in an open theatre, where short films about modern conflicts like free speech, immigration and minorities run, and you're invited to vote on the issues.  Group results are immediately projected on the walls.  Showing that today, just as in Anne's time, there's actually no black and white.  No easy decisions.  Just individuals who mean well, groups that can turn dangerous, and a lot of grey, treacherous territory.

The Anne Frank house was just as depressing and horrible as I'd anticipated.  But I admit it was worth doing.  One of those character-building things you resist, but makes you stronger.  Next visit, I'll be back at the Rijksmuseum, letting Frans Hals cheer me up.  But Anne's story will stay with me for life.