Delft

Vermeer never left it. The girl with the pearl earring, the milkmaid pouring her jug, the hush of light through leaded windows - all painted within these city walls, and he is buried a few streets from his studio. Too often, though, Delft is just a lunch stop: an hour off the Amsterdam train, a Delft Blue teapot from the station shop, back on the platform before the light shifts.

This tidy canal town has a temper. William of Orange was shot dead on his own staircase at the Prinsenhof - the first head of state assassinated with a handgun, a wound Dutch history never quite closed over. Golden Age Delft brewed beer, built ships for the VOC, and in Vermeer's hands turned ordinary daylight into something worth studying for four centuries.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours pass the Oude Kerk's leaning tower and the Stadhuis on the Markt, then slip down to the VOC-Kamer and the house where Vermeer actually worked - corners the coach parties rarely find. Pause for herring at a canalside stall, resume when ready.

Plug in your earbuds and let Delft's light fall the way Vermeer saw it.