A country that built its houses tall and narrow to avoid the tax, then furnished them as though nobody would ever be shown round.
One entry in this country, and I am aware how thin that looks against the shelf of Dutch painting. It is not an oversight of the collections; it is that this directory keeps houses, and the house I have stood in is the one that is written down.
The canal houses are all the same shape and none of them are the same house. Narrow front, deep plan, a garden at the back nobody sees from the street, and a coach house at the far end of it. Learn that arrangement once and every door in Amsterdam becomes legible.
October is my answer here. The light goes flat and grey and the water goes black, and the interiors — which were built for exactly that light — stop looking dim and start looking correct.