I have been to Amsterdam thrice before. One was an enforced halt while I was flying from London to Delhi and, for some reason, was travelling KLM. There were problems with the connection from Amsterdam onwards, so I ended up hanging around in the land of dykes till a seat was found on a flight to Delhi. Also read | The Taste by Vir Sanghvi: Exploring the legacy of fermented fish from ancient Rome to modern kitchens

A second trip was for IIFA, the film award function that the HT used to sponsor in those days. We stayed in a very nice hotel with a French restaurant run by London’s legendary Roux brothers, so all I remember is the food.

A third trip was to speak at a global media convention, and all the harassed editors and media execs wanted to know was, ‘Why is the media flourishing in India?’

I hummed and hawed before saying that I wasn’t sure we were flourishing.

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This year, fate intervened. It was my wife’s birthday, and like any dutiful husband, I asked her what she would like to do on her special day.

She would like to see Vermeer’s painting of The Girl With the Pearl Earring, she said. I knew it was a beautiful painting that had inspired a best-selling novel by Tracy Chevalier and a movie starring Scarlet Johansson. But, I was not sure where the physical painting was located.

My wife, of course, knew all about it. It’s in a museum in The Hague, she explained.

“The Hague? “I asked. “But that’s in the Netherlands.”

“Indeed it is,” she said. “But we will stop for a few days in Amsterdam because I want to go to the Van Gogh museum first. Then I need to check out the Rembrandts and Vermeers at the Rijksmuseum. And while we are there, I want to go to Anne Frank’s house.”

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Long story short, I went back to Amsterdam and enjoyed it far more than ever before. I am still a bit of a Philistine, but years of marriage to an arts buff have educated me a little.

We stayed at the Hotel de L’ Europe one of the leading hotels of the world and the most famous of Amsterdam’s grand old hotels where our first-floor balcony overlooked the canal and the experience was gloriously atmospheric.

We resolved not to eat too much; we had no snacks with our drinks at the Amsterdam Soho House, ate modestly at the very good The Duchess........

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