Leiden

Leiden, 13 March 2016

Only 15 minutes by train from Den Haag, then we arrive at Leiden. A small city but has so many reasons to be visited. It has the oldest university in Netherlands, it’s the birthplace of Rembrandt, it is pretty and all the attractions are within walking distance from Leiden Centraal Station.

We arrived at Leiden at around 1 pm. Just in front of the station, there were some girls, giving information for tourist. We got Leiden’s map and also good direction from them.

From the station, we just go straight to get to the first attraction, Molen de Valk Museum. It was on the left side. Molen de Valk is a windmill museum, where visitors can go inside and go up to the top level and see the windmill’s blades from very close distance. Inside the windmill, there were living room and kitchen in the first floor. In the next floor, we can see tools for grinding. This windmill is for flour mill, and still active until now. When the windmill’s blades are moving, we can see how the gear inside the windmill moves and grind the flour.  

Then we continue walking until we reached Boomarkt and walked along the canal. There were some stalls selling fresh fish, vegetables, cheese and some other foods. There were also so many nice restaurants and cafes by the canals.  Just keep walking and we can see the Koornburg (Koornbeurs Bridge). We can cross the Nieuwe Rijn (branch of the Old Rhine River) and get to Haarlemmerstraat-one of the famous shopping street in Leiden. 

 

Not far from from here, there is a park, Van der Werfpark. It’s a small and quiet park, but good place to take a quick rest. There’s a statue of Mayor Van der Wherf in the middle of the park.

From here, we went to Burcht van Leiden. One of the famous landmarks in Leiden. It is an old castle that was built on an artificial hill. This fortress has a circle shape plan with 35 meters in diameter. From here, we can see the panoramic view of Leiden. 

 

From here, we went to Pieterskerk, the gothic style church. It is famous for its annual celebration commemorating Leiden’s liberation from Spanish. Then, we visit Hortus Botanicus (Botanical Garden) at the University of Leiden. It is one of the oldest garden in the world. There were more than 10.000 botanical species can be found here. With its green house building, we can see many of tropical plants here. Besides the green house, we can also visit the Japanese Garden, Winter Garden and the Rosarium.

Not far from Hortus Botanicus, we can visit the Rijkmuseum van Oudheden (The National Museum of Antiquities). It has numerous archeological exhibits from Egypt, Greek and Romans Periods.

Then we passed The Blauwpoorts Haven (Blaupoorts Harbour) on the way to the Centraal Station. From here, we can see the Windmolen de Put.