There is still plenty of the Netherlands we want to see and explore so this weekend we headed out to a new town despite the inconclusive weather forecast! The destination: Leiden!
Leiden is half an hour on the train, about half-way between Rotterdam and Amsterdam. Leiden is a really beautiful, old university town. The city was the first to open a university and is thus the oldest university town in the Netherlands. There are many canals which you can cross using one of the 88 bridges. The canals are lined with old buildings including the old scale house where goods were weighed as they came off the docks.
Saturday is market day in Leiden. Unlike most other towns, Leiden does not have a central square where the market is held. Consequently the market sprawls along all the canals throughout most of the town. Market day is always very festive but it also makes the city very busy and chaotic. We always enjoy the tunes of the barrel organ always to be found on market day; this was the first time we heard the Greece melody! =)
After exploring the city and the market, we headed to the hortus botanicus or botanical gardens at the university. The gardens have nothing on Kirstenbosch but are still pretty cool and have such a rich history and impressive collection in a relatively small space. The collection was started by Carolus Clusius in 1594 and is continues to grow today. The collection includes a Ginkgo biloba tree from 1785, the oldest in Europe; cycads from South Africa and an impressive collection of orchids, tropical plants, sub-tropical plants and ferns. We enjoyed the carnivorous plants such as the Venus fly-trap and pitcher plants, but they have so many after a while they feel very creepy! The greenhouses reminded us very much of the climate in Durban. Now we know where to go to get our fix of hot and humid weather!
By this time the rain had set in and it was time to find a snack and warm drink! We headed to the Oudt Leyden thinking we couldn’t go wrong if they have been serving traditional Dutch pancakes since 1907! Not having tried any here since we arrived it was time! The Dutch are serious about their pancakes so forget the image of two small rolled up pancakes on offer at the local fete. The pancakes we were served were 40 cm in diameter! Bron had an apple and cinnamon pancake and Justin had an apple, rum and raisin pancake! Very yummy!
After much indulgence and rain it was time to head home.
Justin had a cricket game on Sunday. The whole team drove one and a half hours to Eindhoven only to discover that the field was water logged. Don’t they have telephones in Eindhoven?? Fail. We rescued the day by going for a nice long cycle in the afternoon. We cycled about 15 km and almost made it to Delft!
Happy birthday to Dad Cross for today! And congratulations to Martin and Kirsten who were married on Saturday! Woohoo! Sorry we weren’t there =(
Hope you all have a good week!
x
Windmill in Leiden
View of canal and market in Leiden
The old weigh house
The 'winter garden' at the hortus botanicus
Sunflowers!
Inside one of the greenhouses
One of the many different orchid species
Pancake time!
The route of our bike ride on Sunday afternoon =)
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