Jaunted

· Houseboat Museum Amsterdam is a city where lives are built around water, and nowhere is that more evident than the Houseboat Museum. The museum is a replica of a typical floating home where Amsterdammers can live—in fact, the museum’s website boasts that the boat is so authentic and inauspicious that “nowadays it looks like the owners have just popped out to the shops.” Though there are no famous works of art or scraps of history here, you’ll be amazed by how easy it is to go about normal daily life without ever setting foot on land.

· Tassenmuseum Paris doesn’t have a monopoly on European fashion. Holland has become well known for its design talent, producing starchitects like Rem Koolhaus and photographers like Inez and Vinoodh. The Tassenmuseum, or Handbag Museum, starts with a simple concept and executes it beautifully. Handbags may seem like something small and commonplace, but the loving attention to detail of the Tassenmuseum will have you recognizing bags as works of art. Come to think of it, the museum is a metaphor for the city of Amsterdam itself.

[Photos: Jaunted]