52.16° N · 4.49° E
The oldest university city in the country, with an Egyptian temple, a T. rex, a botanical garden from 1590 and canals to tour by boat. Half an hour from Amsterdam.
What to do
Each plan says how long it takes, who it's for and whether you can book.
Museum · 2 h · The national museum of antiquities: an Egyptian temple in the hall, mummies, Greece and Rome. €14; open daily and on Thursday evenings.
Museum · 2 h 30 · The Netherlands' natural history museum, with the tyrannosaur Trix and the Ice Age. €18 from age 4; free up to 3.
Garden · 2 h · The university's gardens and tropical greenhouses, beside the Rapenburg, where the first tulips were planted. Open daily from 10:00 to 17:00.
Itineraries
Days and weekends already planned out, with how to get between each stop and who to book with.
Plan the trip
Each choice narrows the next: the season shapes how best to travel, and how you travel decides where you stay and where you eat.
When to go
From April to September, with terraces on the canals; in March, April and May, the flower fields and Keukenhof are also a short trip away. The museums and the boat run all year.
How you travel
Choose how you're travelling and we'll tell you where to stay, how to get around, where to eat and which services you'll need. We only show the ways of travelling that make sense here.
Leiden is about 20 minutes by train from Amsterdam Schiphol airport, which has direct flights from Madrid, Barcelona and nearly all the major Spanish cities, so it can be your first or last night of the trip. Rotterdam The Hague airport, with flights from Barcelona, Málaga, Alicante, Valencia, Seville and the Canary Islands depending on the season, is also nearby. You don't need a car.
Leiden is small and pedestrian-friendly: everything is within twenty minutes' walk of the station, and the boat covers the canals. It lies between Amsterdam and The Hague, half an hour from each, and twenty minutes from the airport. The budget per person per day includes accommodation, food and entry fees.
Who you're with
A trip with a toddler is not the same as one with a teenager. Pick yours to see what works and what to bear in mind.
For a small city, Leiden has a very full programme for children: a Tyrannosaurus, an Egyptian temple, a windmill to climb, a castle on a hill and a boat that is covered if it rains.
With young children, Leiden works on foot and in short stretches: a museum with dinosaurs, the garden, the boat and the Burcht.
Leiden is a student city, and teenagers notice: bikes, cafés and terraces on the canals. In the museums, the Egyptian temple and the tyrannosaurus beat the paintings.
Where to stay
We show you what suits the way you travel.Change how you travel
Why we like it: Boutique hotel with 18 rooms in the former guardhouse of the 1817 Morspoort barracks, facing a windmill and the old city gate.
Why we like it: Urban hotel with 19 rooms and four studios in central Leiden, overlooking the De Valk windmill and the Oude Singel, five minutes from the station.
Services for this trip
Where to eat
From set lunch menus to Michelin stars. We mark the price level and what to order at each place.
What to order: something from the daily menu on the floating terrace; in winter, book a dome.
What to order: the Rapenburger, the house sandwich, on the terrace by the canal.
Map
The places to stay and services on the map are the ones for the way you travel. Turn on the layers you want and tap a point to see its details.
Nearby
The closest places, whichever country they are in.
52.08° N · 4.32° E
By planeCar-freeLuxury
52.01° N · 4.36° E
By planeCar-free
52.01° N · 4.71° E
By planeCar-free
51.92° N · 4.48° E
By planeCar-freeLuxury
Tips
The antiquities museum and the Hortus are open daily; the Lakenhal and De Valk are not.
The RMO is also open from 19:00 to 22:00.
On the street in the centre, only with a €30 day ticket.
In winter it is covered and heated.
Leiden has the oldest university in the Netherlands, founded in 1575, and it shows in everything: students on bikes, bookshops, packed cafés and a collection of museums that is out of proportion to a city of its size. Rembrandt was born here, the first tulips in the country were planted here in the botanical garden and there is a real Egyptian temple inside a museum. The centre is an oval of canals, the prettiest of which is the Rapenburg, and it can be walked in an hour. It is half an hour from Amsterdam and The Hague, and in spring a stone's throw from the flower fields.
By train, about 35 minutes from Amsterdam Centraal to Leiden Centraal, with very frequent trains that stop at Schiphol. From the station the centre is ten minutes on foot: you leave by the city side and soon see the De Valk windmill. By car, parking on the street in the centre is only possible with a €30 day ticket: use the Lammermarkt or Morspoort car parks.
Start at the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, the national museum of antiquities, on the Rapenburg: in its hall is the Temple of Taffeh, an Egyptian temple given by Egypt, and inside, mummies, Greece and Rome. Across the canal is the Hortus botanicus, the oldest botanical garden in the country, with tropical greenhouses; it needs a couple of hours.
Eat in the centre: a sandwich at Café Barrera, opposite the university building, or on the floating terrace of Annie's. In the afternoon, climb the Burcht, a castle on an artificial mound with views over the rooftops, and take the canal boat, which leaves from the Blauwpoortsbrug all year. If you like painting, go to De Lakenhal, the city museum; if you are travelling with children, to Naturalis, with its tyrannosaurus. Finish at the De Valk windmill, of 1743, beside the station.
In spring, yes. Keukenhof, the great tulip park, is open from mid-March to early May, a short distance from Leiden, and the region's flower fields lie in between. Many visitors do it from Haarlem or from here. Outside that season, Leiden combines very well with The Hague, a quarter of an hour by train.
Yes: it is cheaper and quieter than Amsterdam and is half an hour from Amsterdam, The Hague and the airport. The Boutique Hotel d'Oude Morsch occupies the former guardhouse of a barracks of 1817, opposite the Morspoort, and the City Hotel Rembrandt looks onto the De Valk windmill, five minutes from the station.
From April to September, with the canal terraces full; in March, April and early May, for the flowers. On 3 October the city celebrates the end of the Spanish siege of 1574 with a festival, a market and herring with white bread: some museums close that day. The Lakenhal and the windmill are closed on Mondays; the RMO is open every day.
Questions
About 35 minutes by train from Amsterdam Centraal, on trains that stop at Schiphol.
The Egyptian temple at the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, the Hortus botanicus, the Burcht, the canal boat and the De Valk windmill; with children, Naturalis.
Yes, the Temple of Taffeh, in the hall of the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, on the Rapenburg.
Both work as a base in spring; Leiden is also a quarter of an hour from The Hague.
Yes, Bootjes en Broodjes sails all year, with a covered, heated boat if it is cold.
Geocaliahttps://www.geocalia.com/en/the-netherlands/leiden
