Venlo

Venlo trades where the Maas meets Germany, and always has. The medieval river port joined the Hanse, passed between duchies, Spain, and every army that marched the Maas corridor, and settled into its modern role as the Netherlands' eastern gate: today the region is the country's greenhouse and greengrocer — "Greenport" Venlo moves Europe's vegetables, flowers and logistics at a scale the 2012 Floriade world horticultural expo celebrated on site — and the German border is simply the far end of the shopping street, Düsseldorf's day-trippers filling the market squares. The old centre survived a hard war (the bridges made Venlo a target) and keeps its treasures close: the ornate Renaissance town hall with its twin onion towers, the Limburg museum of regional life, and the Museum van Bommel van Dam, the province's first museum of modern art, reborn in the old post office.

Limburg's soul shows best in February: Venlo's carnival, ruled by the Jocus guild since 1842, is among the country's oldest and most devout in its frivolity, dialect songs included. The concert record's register — chamber concerts, choirs, church music, festival visits — describes the base on which the town's theatre adds the touring seasons. Cabbages, carnival and a border made for crossing: Venlo sells the good life wholesale.