Visited in April 2024. What a fun little site! That was my initial reaction after visiting the Eise Eisinga Planetarium. Sites like these make the World Heritage hunting worthwhile. I'm not a huge space or planetarium enthusiast, so I would have most likely skipped this place if I had stopped for whatever reason in Franeker, the town where the planetarium is located. But because the planetarium is a WHS, that was my sole reason to arrive in lovely Franeker.

When you arrive to the planetarium you're first surprised how small the building is. After getting your ticket you first walk through a basic planetarium exhibition, mostly geared towards children, and I happened to share my visit with a group of pre-school children, who were more interested of the sound that the wooden floors make when you run on them than anything space related. I watched a video about Eise Eisinga, the mastermind behind the planetarium, and walked through the exhibition rooms that told the history of astronomy, Eisinga's family and the town on Franeker. It was interesting to learn that Franeker used to be a bustling university town until Napoleon destroyed the university.

The entrance ticket includes a guided visit to the actual planetarium room. These are held in Dutch and English and they announce when the next one starts on the central radio. I was quite surprised that I wasn't the only one in the English briefing on that day (weekday in April). I have to say, without the briefing I wouldn't have a clue how the planetarium works or how you read it but with the explanation it all made sense and left me in awe how just one person's passion was enough to create such a masterpiece. Not only it's still working perfectly, but the planetarium is also aesthetically pleasing. After the briefing I visited the upstairs where you can see the technical side of the planetarium. 

Since the English briefing started quite soon after I arrived to the museum, my visit didn't take very long. This is a fun site and definitely one of the best that the Netherlands offers to the WH list. It might be lucky that the planetarium is located in quite remote town, because this site would be overrun with tourists in Amsterdam, but now the crowds are manageable. Besides the planetarium room, the rest of the museum was mildly interesting. I have attached a photo of one the other exhibition rooms to this review.