Destination
the Wise Book
A beautiful, welcoming student town, perfectly placed between two capitals: Amsterdam and The Hague. The birthplace of the first Dutch University, which was set up in… a monastery. And also the birthplace of Rembrandt van Rijn, and one of the oldest and most important towns in the Netherlands. Here the finest cloth in Europe was produced and the tastiest beer was brewed; here people fought for their town and won. Here there is a festival of its own, an official day off in Leiden and nowhere else. Which one, and why? We will find out, along with a great deal more, during a walk through this pretty “little Amsterdam” :)
The tour lasts 3 hours and covers the historic centre of Leiden.
There is no museum here, and no house either — it was pulled down back in the nineteenth century. All that remains is a spot on the embankment and a monument shaped like an easel. And there is something very fitting in that: the future genius was born not in a palace but in a miller's family, in an ordinary Leiden house by the water.
"The Falcon" is what its name means. Seven floors, and work once boiled on every one of them. Rembrandt's father was a miller, and the boy grew up amid this rumble, flour dust and endless wind. Today there is a museum inside, and you can climb to the top.
A round fortress on an artificial mound in the very centre of town. The mound was raised by hand — somewhere to retreat to when the two rivers flooded or an enemy arrived. By one account the Romans built something here first, and the argument continues to this day.
The first university in the Netherlands. And it was given to the city as a reward for the siege — for holding out and not surrendering. Legend has it the townspeople were offered a choice: exemption from taxes, or a university. They chose the university.
A small pink house by the water that hundreds of people walk past without noticing. Yet the town still talks about it: by legend, Leiden's famous "Madam" lived here. A delicate story, in places scandalous — which is exactly why it outlived the centuries.
The place where goods were weighed — and where it was decided whether you were an honest merchant or not. In a town like this, weight was no domestic trifle but a matter of reputation and money: cloth, cheese, spices. Leiden cloth was once considered the finest in Europe.
