Friedrichstadt, Germany: the "Little Amsterdam" of the north and its Dutch canals

Step into Friedrichstadt and you could be forgiven for thinking you had crossed into the Netherlands: stepped-gable brick houses line straight canals, small bridges arch over the water, and roses climb the facades. The likeness is no accident. The town was founded in 1621 by Dutch settlers - Remonstrants and Mennonites seeking religious freedom - whom Duke Friedrich III of Holstein-Gottorp invited to build a trading town on his marshland. A small town of around 2,600 people in Schleswig-Holstein, Friedrichstadt sits where the Eider and Treene rivers meet, about 15 kilometres south of Husum and roughly 120 kilometres north-west of Hamburg.

The newcomers laid out a grid of streets threaded by canals, the Grachten, crossed today by some eighteen bridges, and raised gabled houses in the Dutch Brick Renaissance style. Dutch was even an official language; little wonder the place became known as "Little Amsterdam".

A town of tolerance

Friedrichstadt was conceived as a refuge, and over time it sheltered Remonstrants, Mennonites, Lutherans, Catholics, Quakers and Jews, earning it the name "town of tolerance". Its Remonstrant church is the only one of its kind outside the Netherlands, and the market square is ringed by stepped-gable houses, carved doorway marks and the historic Alte Münze, now a museum.

On the canals

The finest way to take it all in is from the water, on a small boat gliding beneath the bridges, or on foot and by bicycle through the flat North Frisian landscape around the rivers. With its mild coastal air and its serene, picture-book streets, the town has become a quiet retreat near the North Sea.