I’m hanging onto dear life climbing up a steep staircase with rickety banisters. I have to hold onto the next step with my hands before I get on it. My friend Marcel makes it look easy as he quickly climbs the stairs carrying a toddler in his arms. We’re inside a working windmill and it’s our first day in the charming town of Delft.

On reaching the top, I get my first aerial view of the town. The gently rotating blades of the windmill frame the canals lined with red brick houses below.

Delft, located in southern Holland between Rotterdam and the Hague, is a text book university town. Famous for its eponymous porcelain and pottery, it seems like a stretched canvas of gentle blue hues and students riding bicycles in the foreground. This is Vermeer country — immortalised by Johannes Vermeer in his beautiful paintings using the streets and houses of Delft as background.

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