The Fries Museum is one of the best regional museums in the Netherlands and the obvious anchor of a visit to Leeuwarden. Housed in a striking modern building on the Wilhelminaplein since 2013, the collection covers Frisian history, silver, ceramics, and decorative arts, with a thoughtful permanent exhibition on what it has meant to be Frisian — language, identity, water, agriculture — over the centuries.
The headline draw is Mata Hari. Margaretha Geertruida Zelle was born in Leeuwarden in 1876, ran away from a miserable Dutch colonial marriage, reinvented herself in Paris as an exotic dancer of supposed Javanese origin, became one of the most famous women in pre-war Europe, and was shot by the French as a German spy in 1917. The museum holds the world's largest collection of her papers and photographs. The temporary exhibition programme is consistently strong; check what is on before you go.