Fodor's Expert Review Tassenmuseum Hendrikje
Editor's Note: This location is no longer in operation.
In a former mayor's residence from 1664, this unusual museum has the largest collection (more than 5,000) of handbags, purses, and accessories in the world, plus regular exhibitions highlighting the work of contemporary designers. There are beautiful examples going back several centuries and even a few "man bags"—check out the goatskin model with 18 secret pockets that could be buckled to the belt of a 16th-century gentleman-about-town. And what's not to love about a leather clutch bag in the shape of a luxury liner complete with funnels (it was a freebie for first-class passengers on the maiden voyage of the ocean liner Normandie in 1935) or a 19th-century wallet with an embroidered love poem? All of this is the collection of one woman, Hendrikje Ivo, and it all started with a tortoise-shell plated bag bought in an antiques shop in the English countryside. There is also a café overlooking a lovely garden, and (of course) a shop.
