Amsterdam

Amsterdam’s 17th-century canal ring, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is the heart of the city: tall, narrow gabled houses leaning over the water, more than a thousand bridges and houseboats moored along the quays. The big museums sit together around Museumplein, where the Rijksmuseum holds Rembrandt’s Night Watch and Vermeer, with the Van Gogh Museum next door. The Anne Frank House on the Prinsengracht sells tickets online only, released weeks in advance, and the Rijksmuseum asks every visitor to book a start time, so plan those before you arrive. For food, look for apple pie and coffee in a traditional brown café, warm stroopwafels at the markets, raw herring from a street stand, and a rijsttafel, the many-dish Indonesian feast that has been part of Dutch dining for generations.

Spring is the most popular time to visit, when the tulips bloom and the Keukenhof gardens outside the city open from mid-March to early May. King’s Day on 27 April turns the whole city orange with street parties, boat parades and flea markets, and hotels fill up and prices jump around it. Summer brings long evenings that are good for sitting by the canals, and also the biggest crowds. Autumn and winter are cooler, greyer and quieter, with lower room rates and shorter museum queues.

Most visitors get around on foot, since the center is compact. Trams cover the rest of the city and the metro runs from Centraal, and you can pay on both by tapping a contactless bank card or phone in and out. Cycling is the most local way to travel, with bike lanes on almost every street; if you rent one, stay in the lane, use lights after dark and cross tram tracks at a sharp angle. Free ferries leave from behind Centraal station across the IJ river to Amsterdam Noord. From Schiphol Airport, trains to Amsterdam Centraal run several times an hour and take about 17 minutes.