Cheap flights to the Netherlands from L1,883*

The Netherlands may be a small country, but it’s got a long list of sights and a transport network to make it easy to explore. Informally known as Holland, many Dutch landmarks are legendary – the canals and gable-roofed houses of Amsterdam, the imposing port of Rotterdam, the tulip fields of Keukenhof and the windmills of Kinderdijk. Everyone is on bicycles in all kinds of weather, and you’ll want to join them for the best way to visit a country that’s flat and friendly, fun and festive all year round.

Travel to the Netherlands to:

• Bike over or alongside canals and dikes, past tulip fields, windmills and farms.
• See the works of Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Mondrian, visit Anne Frank’s canalside attic hideout or catch an AFC Ajax or PSV Eindhoven football game.
• Visit the regal city of The Hague or the avant-garde port of Rotterdam.
• Relax canalside in Amsterdam at cafés of all kinds and colours, marvelling at the gabled roofs as bikes and boats go by.
• Go sailing or stroll the mudflats or sandy beaches of the North Sea coast.

The country of canals

Experience the canal rings and gabled roofs of Amsterdam, its museums and bars, cafés and multicultural cuisines. Choose the similarly canal-crossed, gable-roofed old town of Utrecht, the cheese market at Alkmaar, the skyscrapers of Rotterdam or the student scene in Tilburg, Leiden or Maastricht. Bike the dikes that crisscross the country, keeping it flood-free and fertile. Go boating or sailing in cities or on the sea, walk sand dunes or mud flats. Have a haring or kibbeling (herring or fried whitefish), try myriad forms of Gouda, Edam, or Leyden cheeses, with pale lagers, witbier or bok specialty beers, or jenever (gin) to go with.

Delightful Dutch cities

Eindhoven is an innovation hub where Philips’ erstwhile factory district has been transformed into lofts, design and coworking spaces. Hop a train to Amsterdam to see the Dutch masters at the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum, bike in the Vondelpark or take a boat along canals, stopping for a beer at a brown cafe to ponder your nightlife plans. Utrecht has a more peaceful vibe, with a walkable old centre of canals lined with tall, skinny, quirky-gabled buildings. Rotterdam offers up innovative skyscrapers and container ships, while nearby Den Haag, or The Hague, is the regal home of the Dutch royal family, the Peace Palace of the International Court of Justice as well as the sumptuous seat of the Dutch government. Dutch cities are both grand and genuine, walkable and wonderful.

Biking the heartland

Get on a bike and get out into the countryside! With almost half the country below sea level, including Amsterdam and much of the surrounding area, the dikes that keep it all together are eminently bikeable, with broad views of green fields, grazing cows, row upon row of tulips, with the occasional stone castle or church spire rising in the distance. Visit Delft, famous for its blue-and-white porcelain, or bike along the 21-windmill-lined Kinderdijk. The jaw-dropping colours of the tulip fields at Keukenhof Gardens in April are a short hop from either The Hague or Amsterdam. If you visit in winter, never fear, the Dutch still bike everywhere, or strap on skates when the canals are frozen.

See the sea

The sea is an integral part of Dutch life, from its 17th-century seafaring, trading and empire-building past to its polders-dikes-and-shipping present. See evidence of the 20th-century engineering wonders, the Zuiderzee and Delta Works projects, which involved reclaiming thousands of square kilometres of land and building thousands of kilometres worth of dikes. The Dutch respect and protect their land from the sea, but also enjoy their vast sandy shores and dunes, at Scheveningen, Zandvoort and IJmuiden. To further explore the sea, you can island-hop in the north from Texel to Terschelling and walk the mud flats of the Waddensee, or go sailing in the North Sea for even more quintessentially Dutch experiences.