This is a city that charms, plain and simple. Everything you want and very little of what you don’t. Compared to some of our recent stops, Amsterdam is quiet (but not too) and offers enough diversions to make the days interesting, while leaving room for plenty of down time.

Here is our street, only a few blocks from the Museum Quarter. Our room, in a bed and breakfast with only two lodgings, is the one with the red geraniums.

Wandering through markets and neighborhoods, always careful to dodge the cyclists.

According to recent estimates, the 850,000 residents of Amsterdam together own 846,000 bicycles. Bonus fact: each year between 12,000 and 15,000 bikes are fished out of the city’s canals.