Leiden punches absurdly above its weight. This is where Rembrandt was born, where the Pilgrim Fathers lived before sailing to America, where the Netherlands’ oldest university has shaped European thought since William of Orange founded it as a reward for the city’s resistance to Spanish siege. The canals are lined with seventeenth-century buildings, and the Hortus Botanicus — the university’s botanical garden, established in 1590 — is one of the oldest in the world, with tulips that trace back to the original specimens that triggered Dutch tulip mania.
The city’s museums are disproportionately excellent. The Rijksmuseum van Oudheden has the finest Egyptian collection outside London and Cairo. The Museum De Lakenhal covers Leiden’s artistic and industrial heritage in a beautifully restored Renaissance building. But Leiden’s greatest pleasure is simply walking — across the bridges, along the Rapenburg canal (often called the most beautiful in the Netherlands), through the Pieterskwartier where the Pilgrims worshipped, and into cafes filled with students debating over coffee in a tradition that has not changed in four centuries.
When to go: April for the tulip fields between Leiden and Haarlem at peak bloom. October 3rd for Leiden’s Ontzet festival, celebrating the 1574 end of the Spanish siege with herring and hutspot.