Amsterdam for The Romantics: a Friday-to-Monday weekend

Rembrandt lies somewhere under this floor, grave unmarked, while the carillon plays over the roofs and the canal turns gold outside; a quiet half-hour before the lamps.

The photography museum stays open late on Fridays, four canal-house floors of portraits and almost nobody else on the stairs; good to look at pictures side by side.

Art Nouveau woodwork and a corner table where the Brouwersgracht meets the Herengracht; order the duck and watch the boats light up.

The 1638 physic garden opens at ten; the palm house is warm on a grey morning and the glasshouse café is the place for a slow coffee for two.

A canal house the family never quite left, with silk wallpaper, a fine staircase and a garden walk to the coach house; unhurried rooms made for two.

Your splurge: a Jordaan room where the kitchen sends what it chose that morning, course by course, until you ask it to stop. Book weeks ahead.

An hour of chamber music in the Kleine Zaal, built so a single cello carries to the back row; coffee in the foyer afterwards.

The low bridges turn into lit arches as the light goes; take the small boat with a roof of glass and sit at the front.

A candlelit French bistro with a short blackboard, a serious wine list and tables close enough to be friendly; walk home along the Herengracht afterwards.

Louisa Willet left the house, the Meissen and the ballroom to the city on condition that nothing be moved, and nothing has; the garden is lovely.

The floating flower market on the Singel; buy a bag of tulip bulbs, which travel well and are a better souvenir than a clog.

A grand-café lunch of bitterballen and a glass of white under the newspapers on sticks, with the tram bell for a clock.