Snow falling on canals

The year I was 16, my best friend and I spent far too many schoolnights (after Expo 88 visits) at Café the Hague. It was a city coffeeshop full of leadlight windows and dark timber, and real espresso, and made us feel like European sophisticates instead of the Brisbane exurbanite teens we really were. Apart from developing a lifelong taste for french fries with mayonnaise, we fell in love with bitterballen (breaded croquettes of pureed beef served with mustard) and poffertjes (tiny pancakes swimming in melted butter and dusted with icing sugar). Eighteen years later I finally got to try them out on Dutch soil. Searching for a taste memory is a dangerous quest, but Amsterdam did not disappoint.

The cafés are tranquil and atmospheric and frequently candle-lit; they're made for whiling away the hours over a coffee or a glass of wine, under a yellow ceiling (like the Café 't Smalle, pictured above). But there are so many more things to love about a city which has raised the gathering of objects on windowsills to an artform. The 17th-century canal houses look almost edible, in their cookie colours with white trim and curlicued neck gables. Fleets of sturdy bicycles have all but replaced cars in the inner rings of the city, giving it a village feel. Some bikes haul around pail-loads of children to and from school. Cheeseshops emit a golden light, with their wares stacked right up to the ceiling. Spicy speculaas biscuits enhance your coffee, and perfectly-executed dinners at French restaurants are easy to find (we loved the paté and the wild boar, with Charles Aznavour accompaniment, at Quartier Latin at Utrechtsestraat 49).

Despite the heavy snowfalls, walking around the Jordaan neighbourhood was ultimately the most fun we had in Amsterdam. Meandering through narrow streets and over canal bridges, we got up close to the houseboats with their compact kitchens in the wheelhouses, and houses with their exterior plaques revealing the building's original use (here a hand writing with a feathered quill, there a barrel with a bunch of grapes), and peered into dozens of funky bistros, galleries and boutiques. It was the best way to see the streetlife away from the museum crowds. But two museums were well worth our time. The Van Gogh Museum was a hypnotic experience when combined with the audio tour, all the better to experience the riotous colour and energy of his brushstrokes. The Rijksmuseum was sadly a truncated experience due to major renovations, but even its small group of treasures on display were staggering. How could you not love the rich domestic interiors of Jan Vermeer, the lush still-life paintings, or the 17-century doll's house with its miniature tapestries, murals and porcelain?