• Rent a bicycle and join the Dutch on the country's most popular form of transport. There are around 17,000km (10,600 miles) of designated cycle tracks around The Netherlands, which due to its generally flat landscape, is ideal.

• Take a glass-topped boat tour round Amsterdam's many waterways and harbour. It is an excellent way to see the city's most interesting areas. Another option is to take the Museum Boat (website: www.water-taxi.nl), which links most of the major cultural attractions.

• Explore the interior workings and health of the human body at Corpus, a new visitor attraction near Leiden (website: www.corpusexperience.nl). The attraction also incorporates a medical information centre with changing exhibitions.

• Take a trip to the Hoge Veluwe national park (website: www.hogeveluwe.nl) near Arnhem, among whose attractions is an underground museum dedicated to subterranean life, and the Kröller-Müller Museum (www.kmm.nl) which contains 280 Van Gogh paintings as well as numerous other works.

• Enjoy a football match at one of the top Dutch stadia, Amsterdam Arena, home of the famous Ajax (website: www.ajax.nl), PSV's Philips Stadion in Eindhoven (website: www.psv.nl) or De Kuip, in Rotterdam, where Feyenoord play (website: www.feyenoord.com).

• Drive across the Afsluitdijk, a 30km (19 mile) barrier built in the 1930s to close off the Zuiderzee from the North Sea, creating the now freshwater IJsselmeer. Motorists can stop at a lookout point halfway across the road linking Friesland with Noord-Holland.
 
• Relive history at the expanded and renovated Het Spoorwegmuseum (Dutch National Railway Museum) (website: www.spoorwegmuseum.nl), at Maliebaanstation in Utrecht, with its extensive collection of historic rolling stock and memorabilia. A regular train link connects the museum with Utrecht Central.

• Ride the high-speed lift up Euromast in Rotterdam (website: www.euromast.com), and dine at a height of 100m (328ft) overlooking the world's biggest harbour. Then, if you're brave, ascend even higher to 185m (605ft) with the Euroscoop experience.
 
• Step back into history at Zaanse Schans village (website: www.zaanseschans.nl), a short distance from Amsterdam, with its traditional houses, working windmills, clog factory, cheese farm, boat builder's and several museums.

• Get away from it all, and go ‘wad hopping' between the five Dutch Wadden Islands. Served by regular ferry services in the summer, the islands are a popular holiday destination, and cycling is the accepted way to get around.

• Stroll around the historic city of Gouda, following the Cheese Map (available from the local tourist office; website: www.vvvgouda.nl), which leads visitors around the various landmarks, including the Weighhouse Museum, associated with cheesemaking in the city.

See Contact Addresses for further tourist information.