I visited the Arnhem 'Openlucht' Museum yesterday amid stunning sunshine intermixed with violent hail storms. We came away with dents in the roof of the car, but the day was truly a gem. The 'open air' museum is a concept grown popular in the Netherlands, and many of them feature historical aspects. When I was a kid, we visited Amish country and Plymouth Plantation, and the outdoor museums in the Netherlands remind me of this type of experience. What these museums do is bring together all kinds of different time periods (and in the case of the Arnhem outdoor museum, geographic regions). The museum in Arnhem won a prize recently for having such an extensive collection and such a unique view.

Inside the grounds of the museum, you can take an historic tram (wooden!) around the premises and get off at different places along the track. There are farms from each region in the Netherlands transplanted to Arnhem as replicas of the place where it originally stood; although most tourists will not recognize the regional differences, the differences evident in houses and workplaces of different time periods are fascinating.. A dairy farm and a cheese-making factory were two highlights among the many different 'exhibits'. Of course, there was also a traditional 'snoepwinkel' (candy shop) and a 'poffertjeskraam' (a tent where 'poffertjes', tiny Dutch pancakes, are served the same way they've been served for generations). The Hollandrama was also a big hit with our group!

Visit their website and consider making this a daytrip from Amsterdam. It's also an idea to take a trip to the nearby forest and make it a weekend out of the city. The nature in the region is breathtaking, and contrary to Amsterdam, there is an occasional hill here and there and the trees alternate between leafed and needled trees---a true feast for the eyes of the nature lover or the history buff in your group. We don't, on the other hand, recommend going during a hail storm!