Leiden, The Netherlands
After visiting Amsterdam for the day, I spent the rest of my time in the city of Leiden on business. Leiden is west of Amsterdam, and can be reached easily by train (about 30 minutes or less). There is a large university in Leiden, and it is also the birthplace of Rembrandt.
A word about the trains: there are different types of trains that you can take. The fastest is the Intercity train, which is like an express train. Then, there is a Snell train, which makes only a few stops between major cities. There is also a local train, which makes every stop. So, depending on your needs, you may not want to take the next available train. If a faster train comes through a bit later, it may actually arrive earlier.
So, starting from the Leiden Centraal station, I headed to my hotel, the Golden Tulip
This was a nice hotel, which you can see from the station and walk to in under 5 minutes.
On the way to the hotel, I came across a bicycle parking lot. Did I mention that there are a LOT of bikes in the Netherlands?
This was actually pretty interesting, with the double-decker bike racks. I have a hard enough time remembering where I park my car in a parking lot, I can’t imagine trying to find my bike after a long day at work.
As part of our business meeting, we had a bit of a tour of Leiden. It was an interesting arrangement. I don’t know if it’s possible to do this if you aren’t in a group, but it was a nice idea. We started out at a small restaurant called Mangerie De Jonge Koekop (it's in Dutch, but you can get a rough translation at Babel Fish, where we had a champagne toast and appetizers. We also placed orders for the main course, but were almost immediately told that we were leaving (the exact itinerary for the evening was a surprise for us).
From there, we were led on a short walk to one of the main canals, where there was a canal boat waiting to pick us up.
One thing of note, the bridges over the canals are extremely low. Consequently, the boat is very low to the water. On the evening we took the tour, it was cold and raining, so the entire thing was enclosed. You'll notice that my boss in this picture is practically crawling to squeeze down the aisle.
In good weather, the top of the boat opens up, which would make for a much different experience. Under the circumstances, I could see out my window, but looking across the way, all I could really see was the riverbank.
A couple of the sights that I couldn't see because they were on the wrong side of the boat were the botanical gardens, the observatory, and the house where Rembrandt was born.
One of the things that I did see was this - the narrowest house in the city. It's there in the middle, believe it or not. It's also for sale, if you're not claustrophobic.
One of the things I noticed during the tour was that very few people have blinds or curtains in their windows. Especially as it grew dark and the lights inside came on, it was very easy to see into most of the appartments and house along the canals. Several people sat in their windows and waved as we passed by.
In any case, we travelled around the city by canal, as the afternoon turned to evening. Upon completing one lap of the city, we made stop, where one of the hostesses from the Mangerie De Jonge Koekop was waiting with a tray of sorbets for all of us. I don't know how long she had to stand in the cold and rain, but we all felt awful about enjoying our sorbets or "spoom").
The boat pulled away again and took us on another motor around the city, via a different route, as the evening turned into night. When we finished the trip, our boat driver tied up and led us to a different restaurant, het Prentenkabinet where we had entrees (the food we'd ordered at Mangerie De Jonge Koekop) and dessert.
This was a nice way of doing a tour. We got to try a couple of different restaurants, and had a canal boat tour. Changing restaurants and piling on and off the boat also meant that the seating arrangments were shuffled several times, which meant that everyone sat near a number of different people. I gathered from a colleague that there are severl tours of this type, and they vary in how long they are and how many stops they make. The information about the tour we did is on the restaurant pages (if you translate them).
The city is very pretty at night (even in the cold and rain). There are lights along the canal that are designed to look like gas lamps, and its a nice effect.
On the last night in Leiden,, a group of us went out for dinner. Naturally, since we were in the Netherlands, we had...sushi. I think this was the place http://www.ichiban.nl/.
I couldn't spend a week in Holland without at least one picture of a windmill, and this one was hard to miss.
I wish I'd had more time to see Leiden. II would like to have seen Rembrandt's home, and colleagues reported that the botanical gardens were beautiful. It would have been nice to wander around the university as well.
Until the next stop...
posted by Jason Ward @ 5:16 AM
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