May 2025. I have a few days off so I decide to take a train to Leiden (Leyden, Leyde) in the Dutch province of South Holland to visit the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, or the National Museum of Antiquities. Steve, my former Latin and Ancient Greek teacher in my teen years, says it’s quite good. As Leiden is just under 1.5 hours by train, let’s go.

Leiden

Leiden (in English sometimes Leyden, which is the Old Dutch spelling; French spells Leyde) may not command the same instant recognition as Amsterdam or The Hague, but for those with a curiosity for history, science, and the quieter rhythms of Dutch city life, it’s a place worth staying a while. 

Situated along the Oude Rijn or Old Rhine, about 40 kilometres south of Amsterdam, Leiden is compact, canal-laced and full of substance. Its population of just over 127,000 belies its broader importance as a hub for research, heritage, and cultural memory. 

Together with neighbouring towns such as Oegstgeest and Leiderdorp, it forms part of a dense urban cluster with over 215,000 residents, while the greater region, stretching towards the Kaag Lakes and coastal municipalities like Katwijk, encompasses more than 360,000 people.

University city

At its core is a remarkable university city. Leiden University, founded in 1575, is the oldest in the Netherlands and remains one of Europe’s foremost centres of scientific research.

Its alumni include thirteen Nobel laureates, and its legacy is tied closely to pivotal moments in European intellectual life. 

Figures like Albert Einstein and Herman Boerhaave taught or researched here. It was in Leiden that Heike Kamerlingh Onnes first liquefied helium, an achievement that helped open the door to modern cryogenics. 

The spirit of inquiry continues today through institutions such as the Leiden Bio Science Park, home to cutting-edge life science research and biomedical start-ups.

History of Leiden

History runs deep here. The city traces its origins to a hilltop settlement at the junction of the Oude and Nieuwe Rijn rivers and grew into a fortified medieval town. 

It played a notable role during the Eighty Years’ War when Spanish forces laid siege to the city in 1574. The siege was broken by deliberately flooding the surrounding polders—an act still remembered each year on 3 October, when the city celebrates its survival with herring and white bread. 

The relief was so momentous that William of Orange awarded Leiden with a university. In the 17th century, the city became a magnet for Flemish refugees, a centre of textile production, and a powerhouse of early printing. Rembrandt was born here in 1606, alongside other notable painters such as Jan Steen and Jan van Goyen.

Evolution

For all its history, the city is far from frozen in time. The layout of central Leiden still reflects its 17th-century heyday, with a ring of canals and narrow brick streets preserved largely due to a long period of economic stagnation. 

That lull, which saw the population drop from 70,000 in the 17th century to just over 30,000 by the early 1800s, spared the city the worst of 19th-century redevelopment. 

Today it remains the Netherlands’ second-largest historic town centre after Amsterdam.

Sights

One of the best places to begin is the Burcht van Leiden or Leiden Castle, a circular 11th-century fortress that sits on an artificial hill, offering a panoramic view over the rooftops and waterways. 

A short walk away is the Pieterskerk, St. Peter’s Church, a Gothic church that once hosted John Robinson and the English Pilgrims before their departure for the New World. 

The nearby Leiden American Pilgrim Museum occupies a modest house but offers rich detail about that period. 

Across town stands the Marekerk, a striking domed church built in the mid-17th century as the city’s first Protestant house of worship after the Reformation. 

Two historic city gates, the Zijlpoort and Morspoort, still mark the former boundaries.

Museum

Leiden’s museums reflect its dual character as a scientific and cultural capital. The Museum De Lakenhal, housed in a former cloth hall, showcases art from the Dutch Golden Age—including works by Rembrandt—alongside pieces from the De Stijl movement. 

The Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, the National Museum of Antiquities, contains ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman artefacts, including the reconstructed Temple of Taffeh. 

Just across the canal, the Museum of the History of Science, Museum Boerhaave, is a superbly curated exploration of Dutch contributions to medicine and physics, fittingly located in a former plague hospital. Naturalis, the national biodiversity centre, is among the largest natural history museums in the world, home to over 43 million specimens, from fossils to taxidermy.

Japan Museum SieboldHuis

Along Leiden’s historic Rapenburg canal, the Japan Museum SieboldHuis offers a window into 19th-century Japan through the eyes of Philipp Franz von Siebold, a physician from Bavaria and naturalist who lived in Japan from 1823 to 1829. 

During his time at Dejima—the Dutch trading post near Nagasaki—Siebold assembled an extensive collection of Japanese artefacts, encompassing natural specimens, cultural objects, and artistic works. Upon returning to the Netherlands, he exhibited these items in his Leiden residence, which now houses the museum Sieboldhuis 

The museum’s permanent collection showcases a diverse array of objects, including prints, lacquerware, ceramics, fossils, herbaria, taxidermy specimens, coins, textiles, maps, and various other treasures . 

These items reflect Siebold’s keen interest in Japanese culture and natural history. The museum also hosts temporary exhibitions throughout the year, highlighting both traditional and contemporary aspects of Japanese art and culture.

Other sites

Leiden also offers quieter, less formal encounters with its intellectual past. The Bibliotheca Thysiana, a rare 17th-century public library, remains intact, while the wall poems of Leiden—a project started in the 1990s—brings poetry from around the world to the city’s facades, inviting spontaneous readings during a walk through town. 

Rembrandt’s early years are explored at the Young Rembrandt Studio, set within the house where he was born.

The Hortus Botanicus, founded in 1590, is the oldest botanical garden in the Netherlands and part of the university. Its hothouses and exotic plants once inspired Carl Linnaeus and Phillipp Franz von Siebold, whose collection would form the basis of the National Museum of Ethnology nearby. 

Both are peaceful places to pause and reflect, especially in spring when the gardens are in bloom.

Daily life

Leiden is also a city of everyday pleasures. The Wednesday and Saturday street markets along the Nieuwe Rijn (New Rhine) bring locals and visitors together amid stalls of tulips, cheese and herring. 

The De Valk windmill museum stands as a reminder of the city’s pre-industrial past, while canal tours offer a slow-moving vantage point from which to observe Leiden’s layered streetscape. 

De Waag, once used for weighing goods, now houses a restaurant and cultural venue. 

Public parks such as Van der Werff Park—created on the site of the 1807 gunpowder explosion—and the wooded Leidse Hout offer welcome green space for a walk or a quiet bench.

For those willing to go slightly further afield, the Keukenhof gardens are only a short trip away and are in full splendour during the tulip season. 

Kinderdijk, with its network of historic windmills and UNESCO World Heritage status, provides another reminder of the Dutch relationship with water.

Leiden is not loud about its significance, but the signs are everywhere—in a name on a plaque, in the lines of a wall poem, in the mix of gables along a quiet canal. It’s a place where the legacy of discovery is not a slogan, but something woven into the rhythm of the city itself.

Leiden 2025

1. REVIEW | Rijksmuseum van Oudheden or National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden