One of the chief pleasures of the Netherlands is its lively contrast between pragmatic liberalism and the buttoned-up, just-so primness of a culture founded on Calvinist principles. ln Dutch society, ostentation is anathema and fuss of any kind is regarded as undignified. The towns are surrounded by canals and castle walls, the endlessly flat landscape which inspired the nation’s early artists still stretches unbroken to the horizons, and the dykes still occasionally threaten to give way.

April to September (spring through summer), for tulips and picnic weather

Exploring Amsterdam’s many neighbourhoods, from red-light sleaze and bohemian chic to stately grandeur Visiting Hoge Veluwe National Park, the country’s largest, with also house works by Van Gogh, Picasso and Mondriaan in the Kroller-Muller Museum Riding a bicycle around the Randstad region to see the spectacular bulb fields, which explode into colour between March and May Wandering around the labyrintyh of tunnels on Maastricht’s western outskirts

Read The Diary of Anne Frank, a moving journal that describes her life in hiding in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, The Fall by Albert Camus, an existential monologue that uses Amsterdam’s canal system as an analogy for the rings of Hell

Listen to Tiesto, the undisputed trancemeister, or for something more highbrow, pianist

Ronald Brautigam

Watch Stromenlied (Song of the Rivers) by acclaimed documentry filmmaker Joris lvens

Eat stamppot (potatoes mashed with kale, endive or sauerkraut, and served with smoked

Sausage or strips of pork) or Vlaamse frites (chips with mayonnaise) for a quick snack

Drink Heineken beer or try Dutch gin (jenever), which is often drunk with a beer chaser;

the combination is known as a kopstoot (‘head butt’)

Een pils/bier, alstublieft ( a beer, please )

Bikes; dykes; windmills; clogs; tulips; red-light district; pot smoking; Van Gogh

Dutch ovens were invented in Pennsylvania; the Dutch are reputedly the tallest people in the world

The country is crowded and Dutch people tend to be reserved with strangers. On the trains, you’ll notice that passengers sit to maintain the greatest distance between each other. The Dutch treasure their privacy because it is such a rare commodity. Still, they’re far from antisocial-their inbred gezelligheid ( conviviality ) will come out at the drop of a hat. Expect chummy moments at the supermarket.