Museums
Before starting with this article about the museums in Groningen, we would strongly recommend for everybody who is a museum enthusiast to purchase the museum card .This museum card costs €64,90 (or €32,45 under 18) and it is valid for 1 year. With the card, you will be able to visit museums in for example Amsterdam, Rotterdam but also in Groningen. Note: not all museums accept the museum card, however more than 450 museums in the Netherlands do! The museums that do not accept the card are usually private museums at which the entry fee does not cost as much as for the national museums. Be aware that usually museums in the EU do not work on Monday.
The Groninger Museum
The Groninger Museum is the most Hanze and UG students’ friendly museum in Groningen. If you are a student in Groningen, and you have a student card you get free entrance! The museum's building is super modernistic and has a good location, facing the central train station of Groningen. The museum consists of a traveling exhibition that stays for a few months and a permanent exhibition related to the artists, history and culture of Groningen.
University Museum
The University Museum is related to the history and discoveries of the University of Groningen. The entrance is free for students and employees of the University, for other students it costs only €4,50. The museum regularly has small new exhibitions. The permanent exhibition is related to the history of Aletta Jacobs (the first woman to attend a Dutch university officially) and human and animal dissection parts. After visiting this museum you will probably be shocked but also amused regarding the human body. The museum is in the city center (Oude Kijk in 't Jatstraat 7a), slightly hidden in a small street.
Noordelijk Scheepvaartmuseum (Northern Maritime Museum)
Noordelijk Scheepvaartmuseum is about the history of the northern Dutch shipping and ship building from the Middle Ages until today. The exhibition contains Hanseatic shipping in the Middle Ages (Hanze University of Applied Sciences is named after this); Ship building in wood and iron; Ship engines and more. If you have the museum card, the entrance is free. A regular entrance ticket costs €8 (or €4,50 if you’re 21 or younger). The museum is located near A-kerk at Brugstraat 24.
Graphic Museum Groningen (GRID)
The Graphic Museum in Groningen is related to the print history of how newspapers, magazines and posters are made. As a matter of fact, the Dutch typography practices, in the past and now, set the trends of typography and design. Typography is all those names of the letter fonts (such as Calibri, Arial etc.) and they are hard, time consuming and expensive to create. All the machines in the museum work, from the historic presses and ultra modern risograph, the typesetting machines and the machines in the bindery. The changing exhibitions in GRID focus on various aspects of the printmaking profession, printmaking history and graphic art. The museum is located at Sint Jansstraat 2 which is close to the Martini Tower. With the museums card the entrance is for free and for students the fee is €5,50.
Storyworld
Storyworld is about collections of comic books, animations and games. It is currently the newest museum of comics, animation and games in the Netherlands. The museum is located in Forum. Students can visit Storyworld for €6,50.
Art & Culture in the city
In case you don’t want to visit a museum, you can just walk around in the city. Next to the Martini Tower (which you can climb!), Martini Kerkhof and Grote Markt, you can also visit the A-Kerk. If you travel by public transport, you will definitely come across the Peerd van Ome Loeks (at the central station). Furthermore, there is a lot of street art in Groningen, so make sure to check out the streetart route!
Events
A nice event in Groningen to check out is Open Monumentendag, which takes place in September. During this event, museums open their doors for free and activities will be organized.