To celebrate this significant milestone, our writer follows the flow of the artist’s inspiration, taking in sights that would have been familiar to the Old Master

For visitors in search of scenic walking routes, the province of North Holland is perhaps not an obvious choice. The landscape is famously as flat as the local pancakes and picturesque mountains, forests and waterfalls are in short supply.

Head into the countryside south of Amsterdam, however, and you can find lovely walking routes amid a quintessentially Dutch landscape of green fields, windmills and waterways. Walks along the Amstel River, which flows north into Amsterdam, also offer an opportunity to follow in famous footsteps. Rembrandt van Rijn lived for much of his life close to the river, was fond of walking its banks and produced some beautiful pictures here. With Amsterdam about to celebrate its 750th birthday in June, it’s a good moment to see the city from another angle, along the waterway which gave the city its name.