A pretty little place some 25km northeast of Rotterdam, GOUDA is almost everything you'd expect of a Dutch country town: a ring of quiet canals encircling ancient buildings and old quays. More surprisingly, its Markt is the largest in Holland - a reminder of the town's prominence as a centre of the medieval cloth trade, and later of its success in the manufacture of cheeses and clay pipes. The touristy cheese market , held here every Thurs... [More]