From the train station, follow the signs to 'Centrum' and within ten minutes you are on Kleiweg, the main pedestrianized shopping street, walking south toward the Markt. The whole historic city sits inside an oval ring of canal that nineteenth-century planners almost filled in and then, thankfully, did not. The Markt is the obvious first stop: the Gothic city hall sits like a wedding cake in the middle of the square, the Waag weighing house on one side, cafes ringing the rest. From here every other landmark is a five-minute stroll. Bring a comfortable pair of shoes, not because the distances are long but because the cobblestones will find you out by lunchtime. Watch for cyclists everywhere except Kleiweg itself, where bikes are forbidden and you can finally exhale.

If you can possibly time your visit for a Thursday between April and August, do so. From 10:00 to 13:00 the Markt transforms into the working cheese market that has been running, in some form, since the Middle Ages. It is theatrical now, with traders in white coats performing the handjeklap ritual of clapping palms to seal a price, but the cheeses are real and the show is fun. The rest of the week, the Waag itself hosts a small cheese museum that explains the trade. Several shops on Lange Tiendeweg, including 't Kaaswinkeltje, will let you sample wheels at different ages, from a mild four-week jong to a crystallized, almost butterscotch-flavored oude kaas aged a full year or more. Buy the older one.

Three minutes south of the Markt, the longest church in the Netherlands hides a collection that most travelers walk past without realizing what they are missing. The 72 stained-glass windows of Sint-Janskerk, made between 1530 and 1603 by the brothers Dirk and Wouter Crabeth and their successors, are the most significant stained-glass cycle in the country. Pay the admission. Take the audio guide, or just sit on a wooden bench and let the colored light shift across the stone. The windows survived the Reformation when the Catholic imagery in most Dutch churches was destroyed, a near-miraculous outcome that this guide will not spoil. You will need about an hour. You will probably want more.

The stroopwafel was invented in Gouda in the late 18th or early 19th century, a thin waffle split horizontally and welded back together with warm caramel syrup. The trick to eating one in Gouda is not buying the supermarket-wrapped kind. Find a market stall or a small bakery making them fresh; the dough goes onto a hot iron, the wafer comes off, the warm caramel goes in. Then balance the whole thing on the rim of a hot cup of coffee for a minute. The steam softens the waffle, melts the syrup further, and turns the snack into something approaching dessert. Locals will tell you this is the only correct way. They are correct.

Rent a bike at the tourist office and within ten minutes you can be in the Groene Hart, the Green Heart of Holland, pedaling past dairy farms, windmills, and grazing storks. The Reeuwijkse Plassen lake district is a half-hour ride east. Or aim for Oudewater, 13 kilometers east, a tiny village famous for its 'witch weighing house' where, in the 16th century, women accused of witchcraft could be officially weighed and issued a certificate proving they were too heavy to fly on a broomstick. The rigged trials elsewhere in Europe burned innocents; Oudewater's scales burned no one. When you finish the day in Gouda, the trains run late into the evening to wherever you are based. Stay overnight if you can, though. The candlelit canals after the day-trippers have gone home are the best argument the city makes for itself.