Leiden

This Saturday we visited Leiden for another Dutch cultural experience.  Very shortly we’re going to get fed up of this –  No, please don’t make me go….not another old town full of attractive gabled houses and tiny cobbled streets, not more canals and quaint little bridges, not another  street market full of fresh produce and the wafting aroma of sticky sweet stroop waffles…..

Leiden's university is the oldest in the Netherlands and the town is twinned with Oxford in the UK. It was also home to the original Pilgrim Fathers who fled there from the UK before setting sail in the Mayflower for a new life in the US.  As we’ve visited Plymouth in Massachusettes and admired the preserved rock where these intrepid Pilgrims made their first footsteps on US soil, and as we’re from Southampton, where the Mayflower stopped en route, it seemed quite fitting that we should eventually end up one day in Leiden –  admiring yet another Pilgrim memorial.

Another interesting fact we learned about Leiden as we followed the Leidse Loope signposts around the town – a sort of treasure hunt of its most significant spots – was that like Haarlem, Leiden was also besieged by the Spanish back in the 1500’s.  Having seen the fate that had befallen the starving inhabitants of Haarlem, apparently the Mayor of Leiden offered to be sacrificed so that the population of Leiden could eat his body!! Fortunately (for him) they declined his offer and decided to flood the town instead so that they could be saved by the Dutch fleet. Who knew??

History lesson over and life ticks over quite happily, tulips are popping up in the garden and in the public parks the daffodils are already out. We've had our first significant snow fall, and yes the Dutch do still cycle in the snow.  All that ice just adds to the challenge.  I've had my hair cut, and highlighted by a lovely young Dutch hairdresser who tells me she will make me more 'playful' (??) a message that has obviously been adopted by Ed the cat who has now taken to hiding in a black sports bag in the closet just in case  the 'find the black cat on the black carpet' game wasn't fun enough. Honestly it took me ages to find him, I seriously thought he'd been cat-napped.....