It’s April and spring is here. Our offerings for April include a couple of outside pursuits and if the weather goes Dutch again, there is plenty to enjoy indoors.

Enjoy una peli Española
The Spanish Film Festival’s opener is the sizzling La Guitarra Flamenca de Yerai Cortés, a documentary about the guitarist and the family he grew up in.

Also on the extensive programme is the Dutch-Spanish co-production Muy Lejos, or Zo ver weg, about a young man who travels to Utrecht to see a football match but who suffers a panic attack and stays only to find himself alone and struggling to reinvent himself in a strange environment. Venues are in Amsterdam and Haarlem and all films are subtitled in English. April 4-13. Website

Get your fill of Dutch 17th century painters
You can read all about it here and soon you will be able to see it in the flesh: the Leiden Collection of Dutch 17th-century art is coming to the H’art Museum, formerly the Hermitage, in Amsterdam. It’s a cornucopia of works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Frans Hals, Jan Steen, Ferdinand Bol, Gerard Dou, Frans van Mieris and  Maria Schalcken.

Portraits of the wealthy and an occasional glimpse of the life of ordinary folk open the window a crack onto the lives of Amsterdammers of the time. And there’s the restored and diminutive Young woman seated at a virginal by Vermeer as well. From Rembrandt to Vermeer opens on April 9. Website

Get some tennis in
It’s three days of top women’s tennis at the Sportcampus Zuiderpark in The Hague this month with the Netherlands, Germany and Britain battling it out for the Billie Jean King Cup. Pay less with a passepartout or a family ticket. April 10-12. Website

Get up on the roof
You’ve done the Rijksmuseum, had a stroll along the canals, now what to do with a visiting pal? Not to worry, there’s a brand new attraction in town. The roof of the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam is open to the public, that is those members of the public whose knees are up to the 216 steps. A beautiful view of the city awaits. Until November 2. Website

Celebrate the bard’s birthday
The Badhuistheater in Amsterdam presents Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream directed by William Sutton. You will have to be quick, there are just two performances. April 22 and 23. Website

Take a stroll through the Parisian past
Little boys in boaters in the Jardin du Luxembourg, painters at work in Montmartre and a rearing elephant at the zoo are all part of a nostalgic plunge into the Paris of the beginning of the 20th century recorded by the brothers Séeberger.

The Huis Marseille photography museum has brought together 72 large format original prints, 16 of which were rediscovered in the attic of the keepers of Parisian history, the Musée Carnavalet. Until June 22. Website

Tiptoe through the tulips
April is tulip month in the Hortus Botanicus in Amsterdam with lots of varieties in stunning displays, including their tiny but beautiful formed forebears from the mountains of Kazachstan. Until April 30. Website.  The Hortus Bulborum in Limmen, about 40 minutes north of Amsterdam, has hundreds of varieties from its collection on display, but wait a couple of weeks for the best showing.

Catch a cat
The Lithograph Museum in Valkenswaard (Noord-Brabant) has become a haven for cat lovers, with 50 drawings, paintings, etchings, video and lithographs of man of man’s furry friend in all its guises, from cuddly to menacing.

The sublimely arrogant Le Chat Noir drawn by Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen for the famous Parisian cabaret of the same name, fronts the exhibition. Cats weren’t always as beloved as they are now.  When the cat’s away is on until June 22. Website

Catch more cats
We are not done with cats, and with the exhibition Cute and Catty (until June 29) they are getting the setting they no doubt think they deserve. There are 25 modern artworks depicting cats at castle Ruurlo’s Museum More, including the bag Dutch artist Tinkebell said she made from her dead cat’s fur. If that is not enough the Museum van de Geest is hosting Animal Therapy ( until August 31) about cats and mental health (ours not theirs).

Discover the wartime story of the Mauritshuis
The Mauritshuis in The Hague commemorates the liberation of the Netherlands with an exhibition about the war years at the museum.

It’s the extraordinary story of how the museum’s treasures were spirited away to avoid plunder and became a place of hiding for Jewish refugees and other illegal resistance activity right under the Nazi’s noses while at the same time doing their propagandistic bidding. Facing the Storm, A Museum in Wartime is on until June 29. Website

Admire the art of the interbellum
The Catharijneconvent in Utrecht explores how artists coped with the uncertainties of post-WW1 times and the run-up to WW2. The search for meaning expressed in the works by artists like Wassily Kandinsky, Charley Toorop, Carel Willink and Max Beckmann among others, resulted in a new kind of art, in which religion and spirituality played a large part. Between Heaven and War is on until June 15. Website