Leaving Delft (somewhat reluctantly), we took a 25 minute train trip to Leiden, the city that we chose for our second home base in the Netherlands. Leiden has approximately 120,000 residents,

In Leiden, we stayed at the Steenhof Suites Boutique Hotel. The 14 suites of this small-scale hotel are located in the Bruggehoofd, one of the oldest monumental canal houses in Leiden, as well an adjacent historic building. We were extremely pleased with this choice. Bear in mind that it is a 20 minute walk from the central train station on brick sidewalks.

Leiden University was founded by William of Orange in 1575 as the first university in the Netherlands and currently is home to just under 34,000 students. It is one of the leading international research universities in Europe and with credit for 16 Nobel Prizes, Leiden is sometimes called the Oxford of the Netherlands – personally, I would say the Cambridge of the Netherlands 😉☺️

We found Leiden to be a great place to relax, wander about, mingle with the local people and catch up on some laundry. While not quite as picturesque as Delft, it has some great canals and traditional architecture.

The Molenmuseum De Valk is a very interesting windmill museum. For a €5.50 entry fee, you can climb to the top of the mill, visiting the living quarters of the mill operator and his family as well as reading interesting facts about windmill operation and the De Valk history.

From the top of the windmill, you have great views across Leiden.

The Burch is a walled courtyard sitting upon an artificial mound. Built in the 11th century, it was used as a courtyard which could be safe from siege.

Saturday is market day in Leiden and the canal-side stalls were doing a brisk business.

A stroll in the evening presented so many opportunities for photos!

We took a day trip from Leiden to Amsterdam. We realize that Amsterdam is one of Europe’s great capitals and our quick trip just gave us a glimpse of the central core.

Here are some of the highlights of our day in Amsterdam.

Centraal Station, built in the late 1800s on reclaimed land, accommodates about 250,000 people per day. It is a beautiful NeoGothic building with a clock in one tower and a weather vane in the other.

Leading out from the station is Damrak, a major thoroughfare filled with tourists and tourist shops. There are however some interesting sights along the way.

The Beurs van Beriage was the original stock exchange building in Amsterdam. It was a functional building made up of nine million bricks. On our visit, it apparently was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Beursplein Square which houses the current stock exchange was decked out for the holiday season.

The Beurspassage is a faux Art Nouveau shopping passage decorated with chandeliers, a mosaic ceiling and a marble floor.

Dam Square is the historic centre of the city. At one end sits the Royal Palace, one of the four official residences of King Willem-Alexander. It was originally built as Amsterdam’s town hall in the 17th century. In 1808, King Louis Bonaparte transformed the building into a palace and for more than 200 years, the building has been used as the official reception palace of the Royal House where world leaders and heads of state are received, the throne is passed from one monarch to the next and royal weddings take place.

To the right of the Palace is the Nieuwe Kirk – NewChurch which is actually 600 years old.

As you walk down the Kalverstraat (a pedestrian only shopping street which was quite busy with Black Friday sales), you might miss #58. This is Petrus en Paulus Kerk, aka De Papegaal Hidden Church. This Catholic Church served Amsterdam’s Catholics for two centuries when, in the 1500s, they were forced to worship in humble, unadvertised buildings as Catholicism was deemed illegal.

The Begijnhof is a quiet courtyard with residences and two churches. This community has sheltered women since 1346 – originally Beguines who were women who dedicated their lives to God – and today, it provides subsidized housing to about 100 single women (mostly Catholic seniors).

The two churches in the community are Engelse Kerk (English Kerk) built in 1578 and the Catholic Church, another low-profile ‘hidden’ church.

Also in the courtyard is the city’s oldest wooden house which dates from 1528.

The flower market stretches along the south bank of the Singel Canal. Although fresh flowers were for sale, the big market in November is for bulbs!

We walked through the Red Light District but followed the advice of guide books to refrain from taking pictures (or a bouncer may confiscate your phone/camera). This area has everything you have been told exists there – prostitutes in windows, sex shops and sex shows, and wandering addicts. But on a Friday afternoon, it felt perfectly safe and you realize that the pragmatic Dutch have found a way to control the crime that often abounds in these types of areas.

We stepped away from the touristy areas and wandered in the Jordaan neighborhood. This area is laced with canals lined by characteristic architecture. It was much more tranquil and gave us a bit of an idea of what Amsterdam away from the tourists could be.

We had a lovely coffee break in Jordaan and we did the Amsterdam thing and had pickled herring for lunch. We liked it – although to be honest, I think I most enjoyed the bun, pickles and onion accompanying the herring.

We weren’t as enchanted with Amsterdam as we had been with Delft & Leiden, but we know that there is so much to the city that we did not explore. We also did not visit any of the great museums.

I must mention some great meals in Leiden.

We hope you enjoyed reading the blogs about our visit to the Netherlands and are inspired to read more and visit this lovely country!

One last thing about bicycles in the Netherlands. First, we found that the riders were much politer than they had been in Copenhagen. Also, they don’t wear helmets. Of the thousands of riders we saw, we counted 10 helmets and 5 of those were on small children passengers.

Cheers,

Bev & Harvey