The Van Gogh Museum in one visit

Almost everything Van Gogh made, he made in the last decade of his life. That is the fact the museum is built around: the collection is hung in order across the floors, so you walk out of the dark earth tones of the Dutch years, through Paris, and into the light of the south. Done in sequence it reads as a life rather than a greatest hits, which is the whole argument for coming here rather than seeing four of his paintings elsewhere.

When to go, and how to walk it

Tickets are timed and sold online only, so this is not a museum you wander into. It opens daily at nine, and on Fridays it stays open into the evening, which is the single best piece of scheduling advice anyone can give you: the late slots are calmer than anything you will find at midday, and the building takes on a different character once the daylight goes out of the atrium.

Otherwise take the first slot of the day. It is busiest between eleven and two, when the tour groups and the day-trippers overlap.

Walk it in order and do not skip the first floor to get to the famous ones. The Sunflowers, the Almond Blossom and the Bedroom draw the crowds and are worth the crowd. The drawings and the letters rarely draw anyone, and they are where the man rather than the brand turns up: give them the extra half hour.

What to look for

• The Potato Eaters. The Dutch years at their darkest, and the painting he thought would make his name. Start here or the rest means less.
• Sunflowers. Painted for a room he was preparing for Gauguin. Yellow on yellow, which should not work.
• The Bedroom. Arles, and the flattest, calmest thing in the building.
• Almond Blossom. Painted for his newborn nephew, weeks before the end. The one people stand in front of longest.
• The self-portraits. Hung together, so a decade passes across one wall.
• The letters. Upstairs, rarely crowded, and where the man rather than the brand turns up.

Afterwards, Cobra Café is on the square itself, Blushing is across the road on Paulus Potterstraat for a proper sit-down coffee, and Foodcrib is the kiosk on the square if you would rather eat standing up and get back to the grass.

What to keep an eye out for

The museum runs temporary exhibitions alongside the permanent collection, usually on the same ticket, and they are worth checking before you book rather than discovering on the day. The multimedia guide is genuinely good on the letters, which carry most of the biography the paintings only hint at. And if you are here on a Friday, the evening opening is often paired with music or a talk in the atrium: check the programme, because it changes month to month.

How to get there

Fifteen minutes on foot, and the walk is the pleasant part: west along Ceintuurbaan, right up Ferdinand Bolstraat, and over the Boerenwetering into the back of the square. On the tram it is tram 12 westbound from the Ceintuurbaan stop, three minutes from the hotel, and off at Museumplein. On a bike it is six or seven minutes and there is racking at the north end of the square.

The honest version of the Van Gogh Museum in one visit: book early or book the Friday evening, walk it in order, and give the drawings the half hour nobody else does.