Zutphen calls itself Torenstad - Tower City - and from any approach the silhouette explains why. The Walburgiskerk dominates everything, but it is one of a cluster: the Wijnhuistoren, the Drogenapstoren, the Bourgonjetoren, the smaller spires of Saint Janskerk and the synagogue. The city is one of the oldest in the Netherlands, with continuous settlement since Roman times and city rights granted in 1190. Its historic center was voted the best in the Netherlands in the small-city category in 2006. The old streets curl around the original market square. The 47,000 residents live in a place that is easy to walk across in twenty minutes and difficult to leave.

Tucked off the south side of the Walburgiskerk, the Librije is the kind of room that smells like a five-century-old idea. Built in 1564, just after the Counter-Reformation began circulating, it was designed to preserve theological works for the use of Zutphen's burghers in an age when books were dangerously expensive and dangerously portable. The chains - long iron links attached to each book's binding and to the desk - solved both problems at once. You could read freely but you could not steal. The collection survived the Eighty Years' War, the French occupation, and three centuries of municipal upheaval. The VVV tourist office across from the railway station organizes guided tours that get visitors inside; you cannot just walk in.

The city sits in a river valley where the small Berkel and the major Twentekanaal both flow into the IJssel, a side branch of the Rhine. To the west rises the forested Veluwe; to the east stretches the flat agricultural Achterhoek. Zutphen has always been a hinge between the two landscapes, which is part of why it became a Hanseatic trading city in the 14th century. The medieval merchants exported grain and timber and imported the rest. The river bridge has been crossed and recrossed by every army that ever came through this part of the Netherlands - Spanish, French, German, Allied. The Allies took the city in April 1945 after several days of fighting, and the scars are subtle but visible if you know where to look.

On 22 September 1586, during a skirmish outside Zutphen against the Spanish, the English poet, soldier, and courtier Sir Philip Sidney was shot in the left thigh. The wound turned gangrenous and he died 26 days later in nearby Arnhem, at the age of 31. He was one of the most admired Englishmen of his generation - friend of Queen Elizabeth, author of Astrophel and Stella - and the story of his death became famous for the gesture he supposedly made on the battlefield, passing his water bottle to a wounded common soldier with the line, thy necessity is yet greater than mine. The skirmish was a minor engagement in a long war. The line outlived everyone.

Thursday morning is market day, and the Thursday market at Zutphen is one of the biggest in the Netherlands - it fills the squares from early morning until about one in the afternoon and then disappears. A smaller Saturday market runs throughout the day. The city has a Michelin-starred restaurant, 't Schulten Hues, at 's Gravenhof 5-7, and a cafe called Volkshuis near the Wijnhuistoren staffed by adults with intellectual disabilities, whose apple pies are locally famous - even the former Dutch queen made a point of recommending them. The bicycle is the right tool for the surrounding countryside; the train station rents them. The riverside dike just east of the old bridge, locals will tell you, is the kind of place you have to yourself most mornings.