Netherlands Diary, Day 1: Leiden

the "little Amsterdam" that's huge on charm and slim on tourists

My husband, son, and I touched down at Schipol at 10:30 a.m. and boarded a train to Leiden. After the eleven-hour flight from SFO, the gently rocking train through a flat green landscape from Schipol to Leiden nearly put me to sleep. At one point, my husband said, “Look, tulip fields!” This, indeed, was Holland.

At the train station in Leiden, we walked outside, planning to take an Uber to our hotel, but my son checked his phone, noticed the hotel was only a mile away, and said, “Why don’t we walk?” His favorite thing about living in Europe during some of his formative years of middle school and high school had been the walkable cities. So we pulled our carry-ons over the uncrowded cobblestone streets, over one canal and another, dodging bicycles, until arriving at the side street that led to our small hotel.

It wasn’t quite noon yet, but the young man with jet black hair who greeted us at the door informed us that our room was ready. We showered and changed clothes but avoided the beds, making it a point not to get too comfortable. We would hold off on sleep as long as possible in order to mitigate the effects of jet lag.

Out we went on foot, in search of Oudt Leyden, “the oldest pancake house in Leiden.” The pancakes were similar to French crepes, but thinner, about ten inches in diameter, and served on giant plates.

pancakes at Oudt Leyden

After the pancakes we wandered old Leiden, along one of its many canals, where old boats are docked alongside new ones. I could loiter in one spot for an hour, reading every historical plaque, which drives my husband and son crazy. They have one setting: speed-walking. Off we went again. Only later would I read up on the city’s history and realize that fifty of the Mayflower pilgrims are said to have come from Leiden.

boats in Leiden canal

We eventually found ourselves at the University of Leiden, which was founded in 1575. The university is very proud that Einstein taught there off and on for ten years, so much so that “Einstein’s sink” ranks in the town’s list of tourist attractions, but I had to do some web sleuthing to discover that it was at the University of Leiden that Van Gogh found his calling as an artist. We wandered through a passageway to discover the Hortus Botanicus, the oldest botanical gardens in the Netherlands, where the first tulips in Europe were cultivated.

About fifteen minutes later, we stumbled upon a raucous party in session at a tavern attached to the Hotel Rumour, at the foot of the ruins called De Burcht—once a castle surrounded by a moat. By now I was getting a The Comfort of Strangers feeling—all those hidden streets, all those canals, the disorientation of being lost and tired and somewhat dehydrated in a new city in a different time zone. We climbed the steep stairs to the top of the hill, then navigated a rickety spiral staircase to the top of the structure. The stairs were narrow and crowded with traffic going in both directions, and they shook beneath us in a way that wasn’t exactly reassuring. From the top, we could see the city spread out before us.

Leiden as seen from de Burcht

Among the buildings within view near the castle is the former orphanage. A plaque explained that orphaned children had once been forced to work in Leiden’s bustling garment industry in the 1600s.¹ (Today, scholars at the University of Leiden study global child labor, which is still very much a problem in many industries, including fashion; in recent years the Netherlands has passed legislation requiring corporations to track labor practices through every part of the supply chain).

At some point we wandered into an empty square and saw a marker on the wall of a home, declaring it the birthplace of Leiden’s most famous son, Rembrandt. From the square, where a community gardening project was afoot, you could see an old wooden windmill.

By six in the evening we were all running out of steam, so we headed in the direction of the hotel. On the way, we stepped into De Twee Spieghels, the tiny jazz pub where Ben Webster played his final concert back in 1973. The place was empty except for an exceedingly tall young couple and the ethereally pretty bartender, I ordered a light blonde beer made locally, specifically for the pub. My husband ordered a Coke Zero in a tiny bottle, the first of many tiny Coke Zeros he would drink on this trip. On our way out, the bartender explained the origin of the beer and tried to send us away with a bottle, on the house, so we could keep the label as a souvenir.

Back at the hotel, we tried to stay awake, failed, and were all out by 7 p.m. At some point I woke up, thinking it was morning because of the light pouring through the curtains, but when I checked my watch I realized it was 10:30 p.m. I’d forgotten that about Europe in June—how the sun stays up well into evening, and it’s easy to lose track of time. I fell back asleep. Every now and then I would wake and see someone crossing in front of our window, walking home along the canal. I had that comforting sense of being away from home, on a European adventure, somewhere new yet familiar.

Thank you for reading The Wandering Writer. Coming soon: the Leiden shorts film festival, a happy discovery in The Hague, three hours in Utrecht, and more trains.

1. In 2022, the Netherlands passed the Dutch Child Labor Duty of Care Law, which “cited the continued prevalence of child labor despite the extensive preventative measures already undertaken by many large multinational corporations.”