Water, Windmills & Old Masters - Holland and Flanders by CampervanHolland and Flanders by Campervan

The Dutch capital stands on wooden piles driven into peat, and its shape comes from the seventeenth-century ring of canals that now carries World Heritage status. Behind the gables of the Herengracht and Keizersgracht sit museums of the first rank: the Rijksmuseum with Rembrandt's Night Watch, the Van Gogh Museum and the Anne Frank House on the Prinsengracht. When the crowds get too much, walk into the Jordaan or take one of the free ferries across the IJ to Amsterdam-Noord. Two nights is the minimum for a museum, a canal cruise and an evening in a brown café. You cannot drive a motorhome into the old centre: the quaysides are narrow, cyclists have priority everywhere and the car parks are too low. The low-emission zone also requires a diesel engine to meet at least Euro 5. Park on the edge of the city and travel in by tram or train.

The Zaanse Schans is a hamlet on the river Zaan where historic timber houses, warehouses and mills from across the region were brought together from the 1960s onwards. Several of the windmills still work for a living: one grinds pigment for paint, another presses oil, a third saws timber, and inside you can watch the shafts and grinding stones turn. Around them stand a clog maker, a cheese farm and a pewter foundry, and from the dyke you look across the water at a row of green gables. The site itself is free to walk through, while the mills and workshops charge admission. Come early in the morning or towards closing time, because in between the coaches from Amsterdam fill the paths. Motorhomes are not allowed on the site's car park; there is a motorhome stopover in Zaandam a few kilometres away.

The Hague runs the country without ever having been its capital: government and parliament sit at the Binnenhof, a medieval courtyard complex beside a pond, and the International Court of Justice meets in the Peace Palace. Next door the Mauritshuis, a compact town palace, holds work by Vermeer, Rembrandt and Fabritius, including Girl with a Pearl Earring. Escher in Het Paleis fills a former royal winter palace with impossible staircases, and Madurodam lays out the whole country at 1:25 scale. Behind the dunes lies Scheveningen, with a wide sand beach, a promenade and a pier built out over the water. Trams link the centre with the seafront, which is the sensible way to arrive. Note the low-emission zone: diesel motorhomes need at least Euro 4 here. The seafront is packed in July and August, while May, June and September are noticeably calmer.

Two things shape Delft: Vermeer, who painted his View of Delft here, and the blue-and-white pottery that has been hand-painted since the seventeenth century and is still made that way at Royal Delft. On the Markt the late-Gothic town hall faces the Nieuwe Kerk, where William of Orange and later members of the royal house lie in the crypt and where the tower can be climbed. In the Prinsenhof, a former convent, William of Orange was shot dead in 1584; the bullet holes are still in the wall beside the staircase. A few streets away the Oude Kerk leans visibly, sunk into the peat. Delft is where the House of Orange is buried, so state funerals still come to this square. The town has no low-emission zone, but the canal lanes are far too tight for a large vehicle: park outside the ring of moats and walk into the centre.

Nineteen windmills dating from around 1740 stand in two long lines across the Alblasserwaard polder, close to where the rivers Lek and Noord meet. They were built to lift surplus water out of the sinking peat into a holding basin, and that interplay of mills, sluices and pumping stations put the site on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1997. Two of the mills are furnished as museums, complete with the box beds and tools of the milling families who lived in them into the twentieth century. Footpaths and cycle paths run along the dikes beside the water, and boats work their way between the mills. Motorhomes may not park in the village at any time of year; there is designated daytime parking at the edge and a motorhome site in Alblasserdam. Early morning and evening are the quiet hours.

In the seventeenth century Middelburg was the second trading city of the Dutch Republic and home to the Zeeland chamber of the East India Company, which still shows in the late-Gothic town hall on the Markt with its row of statues of counts and countesses. The abbey complex next to it encloses three courtyards and carries the Lange Jan, a ninety-metre tower whose two hundred and seven steps lead to a view across the whole of Walcheren. Much of the old centre burned out in May 1940 and was rebuilt in period style afterwards. A short drive away lies Veere, once the staple port for Scottish wool and now a small harbour town on the Veerse Meer, with the Schotse Huizen on the quay, a church far too big for the place and the Campveerse Toren on the corner. The Veerse Meer behind it is itself a Delta Works product, cut off from the sea by a dam in 1961. Walcheren fills up in July and August; May, June and September are calmer.

The historic centre of Bruges is on the World Heritage list and has stayed largely medieval, because once its sea channel silted up the city fell quiet for centuries and nobody rebuilt it. On the Markt stands the Belfry, eighty-three metres tall, with 366 steps climbing past the carillon to a view over rooftops and water. The canals cut straight through the city and look best from the water itself, with boats leaving from landing stages scattered around the centre. The Groeningemuseum holds the Flemish Primitives, among them Jan van Eyck and Hans Memling, while the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk keeps Michelangelo's Madonna and Child, the only sculpture of his to leave Italy in his lifetime. The Begijnhof and the Minnewater are quietest early in the morning. Vehicles over 3.5 tonnes may not enter the old centre, and sleeping in a vehicle on the street is banned here.

In the Middle Ages Ghent was the largest city north of the Alps after Paris, and you can still read that in the Graslei and the Korenlei, two quays of guild houses facing each other across the Leie. The Gravensteen, the moated castle of the counts of Flanders, sits right in the middle of town and can be climbed inside all the way to the wall walk. Sint-Baafskathedraal holds the Ghent Altarpiece by the Van Eyck brothers, a polyptych finished in 1432 and now shown in a separate climate-controlled room. Unlike Bruges, Ghent is not a museum town but a working university city: the cafés are full of students and much of the centre is closed to through traffic. Ghent has a low-emission zone, and foreign number plates must register in advance, free of charge, even when the vehicle is admitted without restriction. Sleeping in a vehicle on the street is not allowed.

Antwerp puts a medieval core next to the second largest port in Europe, and the clash of scales is part of its appeal. The Cathedral of Our Lady towers over the Grote Markt and holds four Rubens altarpieces, among them the Raising and the Descent from the Cross; a few streets away stands the house where he lived, with his studio and walled garden. On the Scheldt the MAS museum runs a chain of escalators up through the building to a free roof terrace looking over city and docks. The Plantin-Moretus museum keeps the two oldest surviving printing presses in the world, and around Central Station, itself a cathedral of marble and glass, lie the diamond quarter and the shopping streets where Antwerp fashion made its name. Two nights is tight. Do not drive into the centre: a low-emission zone applies, foreign number plates must register in advance free of charge, and sleeping on the street is banned.

The Dutch capital stands on wooden piles driven into peat, and its shape comes from the seventeenth-century ring of canals that now carries World Heritage status. Behind the gables of the Herengracht and Keizersgracht sit museums of the first rank: the Rijksmuseum with Rembrandt's Night Watch, the Van Gogh Museum and the Anne Frank House on the Prinsengracht. When the crowds get too much, walk into the Jordaan or take one of the free ferries across the IJ to Amsterdam-Noord. Two nights is the minimum for a museum, a canal cruise and an evening in a brown café. You cannot drive a motorhome into the old centre: the quaysides are narrow, cyclists have priority everywhere and the car parks are too low. The low-emission zone also requires a diesel engine to meet at least Euro 5. Park on the edge of the city and travel in by tram or train.