Leiden-pleasant Dutch city but no impressive sights

Rembrandt lived on this square where he spent his formative years before leaving for Amsterdam at the age of 17; the city really plays up the Rembrandt story

The historical heart of the city has 28 kms of canals; Leiden is second only to Amsterdam in the amount of water flowing through its city center

The burcht provides a 360 degree view of Leiden although the trees tend to get in the way; the gray stone forming the burcht was taken from the original city wall

Leiden was famous during the Golden Age for its top quality textiles; like many Dutch towns, Leiden is surrounded by a canal/moat that was built in the late 16th and early 17th centuries

Rick Steves loves the American Pilgrim Museum which is housed in the oldest house in town; their hours are short and it's more of a Q and A with the owner as guests look at memorabilia

Modern buildings gathered around the train station with a bicycle garage creatively hidden under the bridge; there of tons of bike stores with most offering rentals

The Old and New Rhine Rivers come together right behind me in the center of town; many important scientific discoveries have been made here, giving rise to Leiden’s motto: City of Discoveries

The Neoclassical Waag building dates from the 17th century and used to be a customs house where merchants would weigh their goods and then pay tax on it

This platform windmill is also a museum; it is located where the town wall used to be with many windmills being placed atop the wall to better catch the wind

This 17th century Lutheran church fits the mold of typical Dutch churches which are relatively narrow but with high walls creating an impressive interior space

This hill was built in the 8th or 9th century with a castle being constructed on it in 1150; during times of siege residents would come to this hill, the burcht, where they had increased defensive capabilities

I was following Rick Steves walking tour and he warns readers to be careful crossing this busy street; maybe I got started a little early on Sunday morning for the locals

The fancy building in the center of the photo was Rembrandt's Latin school; the Dutch constitution was written at a house in Leiden in April 1848

On January 12, 1807, a catastrophe struck Leiden when a boat loaded with 17,400 kilograms of gunpowder blew up in the middle of the city; 151 persons were killed, over 2,000 were injured and some 220 homes were destroyed

Leiden University is one of Europe’s top universities, with thirteen Nobel Prize winners; it is twinned with Oxford, the location of the United Kingdom's oldest university

A large community of Pilgrims settled in Leiden before heading for America in 1620; many Americans, including George and Barbara, can trace their ancestors back to the Leiden Pilgrims

The Pilgrims prayed at St. Peter's Church (1315); the pastor of the Pilgrims, John Robinson, is buried inside

This is the 17th century prison/ court of justice although parts of the building date from the 12th century; Leiden is the headquarters of Airbus which is the leading European aerospace and defense company

This type of building was funded by wealthy donors to house poor people in exchange for a better position within the church; typically, the layout is 12 small houses around a courtyard

Not much of the Doelenpoort Gate remains; Einstein taught at Leiden University for much of the period 1916 to 1930

The Old Court of Justice; Leiden has 124,000 people and is 12 miles north of The Hague and 25 miles south of Amsterdam

St. Peters built houses around it that were then rented out to provide income for the church; the church had a tower built in 1290 but it collapsed in 1512 and never replaced

The Carpenters House, built in 1612, is now a subsidized home for seniors; there is no elevator so hopefully the youngest gets the attic room

Like many European cities, Leiden has a huge, new train station as mass transit gains in popularity; you need a debit card to buy train tickets, not credit cards

The entire structure rotates at its base with this type of windmill, called a post mill; Leiden is considered the Oxford of Hollard with its 20,000 university students

The Morspoort Gate was the entrance to Leiden from the west; completed in 1611, it is one of two old city gates still surviving

100+ buildings in Leiden are decorated with large murals of poetry, part of a wall poem project active from 1992, and still ongoing; the poetry was in many different languages

Leiden has 3000+ historic buildings which is third most in the Netherlands; it also has the most museums in the country