Netherlands 2004 - Day 7
Scott Andrew Bird
July 5, 2004
Leiden
The last full day in The Netherlands - for this trip at least - and the weather was perfect. Far too good to waste any of it indoors.
After breakfast I headed into town, which is always pretty sleepy on a Monday. Many shops didn't open until the afternoon, and this fact combined with the weather made it a great time to explore the south side of the town.
This included the area around the Hortus Botanicus, Europe's oldest botannical garden (begun in 1587). This is where Carolus Clusius began researching medicinal plants in 1592; as well as planting some bulbs from Turkey known as Tulips.
South of the gardens the town began to assume the large roads/big car dealerships role familiar to the fringes of cities around the world, and I headed back toward the centre via a few canalside streets hitherto unexplored. I arrived once again at De Burcht, and decided to soak in a bit of sunshine on the grassy slopes beneath it. There was a strong temptation to spend the rest of the afternoon just lazing in the sun, but I decided a bit more canalside walking was in order instead.
By 5pm I was hungry, sunburnt and exhausted, so I grabbed a reasonably healthy dinner from the station (surprisingly the station in Leiden is much better equipped this way than the Centraal Station in Den Haag) and headed back to the hotel.
A hot bath never felt so good.
The Entire Trip :
- Day 1 - Edinburgh -> Amsterdam -> Edam
- Day 2 - Edam -> Hoorn -> Zaandam -> Amsterdam
- Day 3 - Amsterdam
- Day 4 - Amsterdam -> Leiden
- Day 5 - Leiden
- Day 6 - Leiden -> Den Haag -> Leiden
- Day 7 - Leiden
- Day 8 - Leiden -> Amsterdam -> Edinburgh
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