Johannes Vermeer’s View of Delft is one of the most iconic depictions of a Dutch Golden Age cityscape. The low horizon, soaring blue sky with roving clouds, and a shadow city reflected in the Schie River is a masterful hymn to water and light. As a long-ago art history major, I had dreamed of seeing the painting in person one day. On a 10-day sailing along the Netherlands’ Rhine Delta and inland canals with boutique river cruise company Uniworld this spring, I was not only able to stand before famous Dutch works but also explore the cities and waterways that inspired them.
The Netherlands is a country shaped by water, making it a natural fit for a river cruise. The name translates to “low country” and two-thirds of the land lies below sea level, much of which was reclaimed from the ocean over centuries by an innovative dike and polder system—powered for most of modern history by windmills.
This eternal struggle with water lends the Netherlands its singular beauty and is also what contributed to its rise as one of Europe’s wealthiest nations in the 17th century. The country’s numerous trading ports, together with the ascent of secularism and a rich merchant class following the Eighty Years’ War, gave birth to a blazing artistic fervor. Uniworld touts this cruise from Antwerp to Amsterdam as a chance to see the country’s quintessential tulips and windmills—but the real highlight of the trip is the art.
“It’s estimated that around 7 million paintings were made in the Netherlands during the 17th century,” says Sander Paarlberg, curator of old master paintings at the historic Dordrechts Museum. “Even the lowest estimates by art historians are staggering.”
The art theme continues on Uniworld’s newly launched S.S. Emilie, with replicas of works by famed Austrian artist Gustav Klimt throughout the ship.
Courtesy of Uniworld Boutique River Cruises
The cities that inspired masterpieces
“Uniworld comes from a family-run business and [they] had a high regard for art,” says Piet Abbeloos, a veteran Uniworld cruise manager. “They were always keen on visiting cities with museums and collections that aren’t run-of-the-mill.”
On the art nouveau-styled S.S. Emilie—a 154-passenger ship launched in 2026 and named after Gustave Klimt’s muse—travelers have the advantage of reaching these less-visited towns, including Dordrecht, Delft, and Nijmegen, without the hassle of coordinating trains and short hotel stays. Reproductions of the Viennese painter’s artwork hang in the hallways (other Uniworld ships boast original works by the likes of Chagall and Matisse) and jewel-tone accents mark gilded suites that range from comfortable French Balcony rooms to Grand Suites with a sitting area and a bar.
Following two days in Belgium, we docked at Dordrecht in the south of Holland, one of the busiest crossroads of rivers in Europe. “As the oldest city in Holland, Dordrecht’s historical significance, economic activity, and picturesque location made it an attractive subject for painters,” says Paarlberg.
After a guided visit to the Huis Van Gijn, the opulent estate of the 19th-century collector and banker Simon van Gjin, guests of the Emilie can spend a free afternoon wandering on their own through the Dordrechts Museum and take in the work of local master Aelbert Cuyp. His ethereal pastoral scenes of cows and horses in sun-drenched oak groves became wildly popular with British aristocracy during the Golden Age and inspired later artists such as Thomas Gainsborough and J.W.M. Turner, who made painting pilgrimages to Dordrecht. Travelers can dive deeper into the city’s artistic history by booking their own tuk-tuk painting tour with art dealer Pieter Koopt, available to the public beginning this summer.
One of the oldest cities in the Netherlands, Dordrecht gave rise to such notable Dutch artists as Aelbert Cuyp.
Photo by Mihai_Andritoiu/Shutterstock
Later, we sailed to the coast and docked at Rotterdam, where a guided visit to the Mauritshuis in The Hague brought me before Vermeer masterpieces, including his View of Delft and the enigmatic Girl with a Pearl Earring. Missing were the heaving throngs of tourists brandishing smartphone cameras before The Milkmaid, his equally famous painting, which hangs in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
Built as a 17th-century private residence, the palatial Mauritshuis is also home to the small, exquisite portrait of a bird, The Goldfinch by Carel Fabritius (a work people may know by way of Donna Tart’s 2013 novel about the fictional theft of the artwork). Fabritius lived and worked in Delft (not far from Rotterdam), a city more famously known as the birthplace of Vermeer. I knew I couldn’t leave this corner of the Netherlands without flaneuring along Delft’s cobblestone streets.
“It sometimes seems to me that every brick and cobble of Delft appears somewhere in Dutch art,” writes Laura Cumming in her book Thunderclap, which traces the mysterious life and work of Fabritius. Indeed, the city was a painting come to life: bridges leaping over silver canals, the gunmetal spires of the Old and New Churches pricking a cerulean sky, and windows opening onto still life tableaus—flowers wilting in a vase, a creamy cat curled in a window like a loaf of rising bread. Inside the Oude Kerk, or Old Church, watercolor stained-glass light spilled over Vermeer’s flat headstone at my feet.
Back on board that evening, a four-course dinner with traditional Dutch dishes such as erwtensoep, or split pea soup, grilled fish, steak sourced from regional producers, and beemster and Gouda cheese for dessert, was served in an elegant dining room. After dinner, I retreated to the smaller of two lounges on the upper floor for a nightcap and watched as we sailed past Cuyp cattle grazing a riverbank of spindly beech and willow under a gray vault of sky.
You can see Vermeer’s View of Delft and Girl with a Pearl Earring inside the Mauritshuis in Rotterdam.
Photo by Melvin Bertelkamp/Unsplash
Van Gogh paintings in a national park
Perhaps the most arresting museum visit on the sailing came as we made our way north and docked at Nijmegen. A bus ride brought us deep into the linden tree forest of De Hoge Veluwe National Park, 14,000 acres of woodland and grasslands home to deer, wild boar, diverse birdlife—and the Kröller-Müller Museum. The brick-and-glass building was designed by Belgian painter and architect Henry van de Velde and houses the second largest collection of Van Gogh works in the world outside of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, with nearly 90 paintings and 180 drawings all by Van Gogh.
Founded by collector Helene Kröller-Müller in the early 20th century, it was envisioned as a “culture park” that married art and nature, set within what was originally purchased as hunting grounds by her husband. During World War II, Kröller-Müller is said to have buried some of the post-impressionist masterpieces in the shadowy woods, saving them from Nazi plunder. Sprawling gardens hug the museum and are dotted with original Henry Moore and Sol LeWitt sculptures.
A grand finale in Amsterdam
Amsterdam punctuated the trip, where Uniworld included a guided visit to Fabriques des Lumières’ immersive Dutch Masters exhibit, a larger-than-life art experience conjured through light and sound. After disembarking the Emilie, I lingered for a few days at the storied 41-key hotel Dylan Amsterdam. Not only does the property offer private tours of local art galleries, but it also was once home to a stone theater where Rembrandt worked as a production assistant. Some experts argue that the artist’s chiaroscuro magnum opus, The Night Watch, which hangs in the Rijksmuseum, actually depicts the opening scene of a celebrated play, not the civic guard. At his home, now the Rembrandt House Museum, I gazed out at the city from the same windows the artist once did centuries ago.
Sitting on the edge of a canal under the green light of trembling elm trees, I let the shimmering water blur in front of my eyes and thought back to our stop in the city of Zaandam near the end of the trip. A small museum there, Monet Atelier, is dedicated to the time the artist lived in the city in 1871. Monet wrote to a friend from Zaandam saying, “There is enough to paint here for a lifetime.”
