Utrecht

At 112m this tower tops every church in the country, and a guide walks you up its 465 steps. A storm in 1674 brought down the nave, so a square now sits between the tower and the choir.

Doors that once took cargo straight off the boats line the lower level on both banks. Going down the steps puts the traffic noise above you and the water beside you.

Built in 1924 with sliding panels that let the rooms be redrawn as the day needs. Entry runs on booking with a guide, and only twelve people go in at a time.

Barrel organs and player pianos are wound up and sounded rather than left silent. A guide starts each machine, which turns the visit into a small concert.

Laid out on an old fortification, so earth walls and a moat run between the beds. The butterfly house opens in summer only and holds close to thirty degrees inside.

Twenty minutes out by road, raised again during the 1800s over an older ruin. A whole village was moved elsewhere so the park could be planted with grown trees.

A post office from the 1960s became the library, and the roof was left open when it did. Going up costs nothing, and the Dom Tower stands directly in front of you.

Water traces where the wall once ran, right around the centre, and the broken stretch was joined back up in 2020. Walking the whole loop takes ninety minutes.

The picture book rabbit born in this city appears in a pedestrian signal and in pavement markers. Its museum is built to child height, so an adult alone spends the visit stooping.

An old station building holds steam locomotives and the royal carriages. One platform was kept in place, so the track runs into the museum itself.

A courtyard garden ringed by the 15th-century cloister beside the Dom church. Medieval herbs grow there with labels. Its gate opens off the gap left when the 1674 storm brought down the nave, splitting tower from church.

A museum of Christian art inside a former convent, holding the country's largest medieval art collection. Gilded manuscripts and altarpieces fill the basement treasury. The cloister garden on the canal side is a quiet place to sit.

Opened in 1838, the country's first municipal museum. It holds the largest Rietveld furniture collection and work by Dick Bruna, Miffy's creator. Anyone can sit in its garden cafe without a museum ticket.

Opened in 2019, the world's largest bicycle park holds 12,500 bikes. Signs on every aisle count the empty racks, so a space turns up fast even at rush hour. It connects straight to the station, so riders park and walk on to the trains.

Every Saturday flower and plant stalls fill the square around the Janskerk. Many find the bunches cheaper than in other cities. Toward closing time some stalls bundle their leftovers at a discount.

A Romanesque church consecrated in 1048, one of Utrecht's earliest. Its columns are single shafts of red sandstone and a crypt survives below the altar. Its doors open on fixed days only, so look up the dates in advance.

An old estate woodland along the Kromme Rijn east of the centre. In the middle the Rhijnauwen tea house serves pancakes and coffee. Cyclists reach it in 20 minutes from the Dom, and locals make it their weekend outing.

The largest fort on the New Dutch Waterline, which held enemies back by flooding land. The defence lines it belongs to became World Heritage in 2021, and a walk up the museum roof shows the whole fort. It is within cycling distance of the centre.

After dark, light artworks switch on under bridges, along canal walls and on churches. Some twenty pieces dot the old centre. Markers set into the pavement keep you on the route.