Delft trades Amsterdam's bustle for something quieter - a compact, canal-lined city best known for its blue-and-white pottery and its ties to the painter Johannes Vermeer, who lived and worked here his whole life.
The Royal Delft Factory is the place to see that pottery actually being made, while the Vermeer Centre covers his life and work in the city that inspired much of it. Beyond that, Delft rewards simple wandering - the Markt Square, the Nieuwe Kerk, and the canals themselves are the real draw, especially with fewer crowds than Amsterdam's equivalent streets.
Its small size makes Delft an easy half-day addition to a trip that also covers Rotterdam or The Hague, both close by.
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