Amsterdam

The Netherlands' top treasure house does not disappoint. The crowds huddle around Rembrandt's humongous Night Watch and Vermeer's Kitchen Maid in the Gallery of Honour, but that just means the remaining 1.5km of rooms are free for browsing antique ship models, savage-looking swords, crystal goblets and magic lanterns. You could spend days gaping at the beautiful and curious collections tucked into the nooks and crannies. What's more, free sculpture-studded gardens surround the monumental building, which also shelters a Michelin-starred restaurant, Rijks.

Housing the world's largest collection by artist Vincent van Gogh, this museum is as much a tour through the driven painter's troubled mind as it is a tour through his body of work. More than 200 canvases are on display, from his dark, potato-filled early career in the Netherlands through to his later years in sunny France, where he produced his best-known work with its characteristic giddy colour. Also here are 400 of his drawings and 700 letters. Paintings by contemporaries Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Monet and Bernard round out the retrospective.

For a quintessential Amsterdam experience, pull up a stool in one of the city's famed bruin cafés (brown cafes; traditional Dutch pubs) such as In ʼt Aepjen. The true specimen has been in business a while and gets its name from centuries' worth of smoke stains on the walls. Brown cafes have candle-topped tables, wooden floors and sometimes an affectionate house cat. Most importantly, brown cafes induce a cosy vibe that prompts friends to linger and chat for hours over drinks – the same enchantment the cafes have cast for centuries.

If Amsterdam's neighbourhoods held a 'best personality' contest, the Jordaan would win. The former workers' quarter's intimacy is contagious, with modest old homes, offbeat galleries and vintage shops peppering a grid of tiny lanes. This is the place for jovial bar singalongs and beery brown cafes, the neighbourhood where you could spend a week wandering the narrow streets and still not discover all the hidden courtyards and tucked-away restaurants. The Dutch have a propensity for gezelligheid (conviviality) and the Jordaan is a fount of it.

On a sunny day it seems the whole city converges on this sprawling urban oasis. Couples kiss on the grass, friends cradle beers at the outdoor cafes, while others trade songs on beat-up guitars. Street performers work the crowds, joggers and cyclists loop past, and kids romp in the playgrounds. It's all very democratic, and superb for people-watching. The English-style layout incorporates an abundance of ponds, lawns, thickets, sculptures and winding footpaths that encourage visitors to get out and explore the free-wheeling scene.

Amsterdam is market-mad, and its streets lay out spreads from silks and coins to organic cheeses and bike locks. The Albert Cuypmarkt in De Pijp is king of the lot. Here stalls hawk rice cookers, spices and Dutch snacks, such as sweet stroopwafels (syrup-filled waffles). Bulbs fill the Bloemenmarkt, while porcelain teapots and other bric-a-brac tempt at Waterlooplein Flea Market. The Oudemanhuispoort Book Market has been selling tomes for a few centuries. Then there's the antiques market, farmers market, art market…

Amsterdam has more canals than Venice and getting on the water is one of the best ways to feel the pulse of the city. You could catch the vibe by sitting canal-side and watching boats glide by: myriad brown cafes (traditional Dutch pubs) seem purpose-built for this sport. Or you could stroll alongside the canals and check out some of the city's 2500-plus houseboats. Better yet, hop on a tour boat and cruise the curved passages. From this angle, you'll understand why Unesco named the waterways a World Heritage site.

Seeing Anne Frank's melancholy bedroom and her diary, preserved alone in its glass case, is a powerful experience that draws over 1¼ million visitors annually. Step behind the bookcase that swings open to reveal the 'Secret Annexe' and go up the steep stairs into the living quarters. It was in this dark and airless space that the Franks hid, observing complete silence during the day, before they were arrested by the Nazis and sent to concentration camps. Anne's father, Otto, was the only survivor.

There are more bicycles in Amsterdam than cars. Everyone rides: young, old, club-goers, police on duty, bankers in suits with ties flapping in the breeze. Pedal power is what moves the masses to work, to shop and to socialise at the city's brown cafes. Hiring a bike not only puts you shoulder to shoulder with locals, it gives you easy access to the city's outer neighbourhoods and their cool architecture and museums, as well as the windmill-dotted countryside and its time-warped villages.

For decades it was Queen's Day, but since the investiture of King Willem-Alexander, it's King's Day, or Koningsdag, now celebrated on his birthday, 27 April (unless it falls on a Sunday, in which case it takes place the day before). It's really just an excuse for a gigantic drinking fest throughout the city's streets and for everyone to wear ridiculous orange outfits, the country's national colour. There's also a vrijmarkt (free market) citywide (where anyone can sell anything) and rollicking free concerts.