Leiden planning walking and canal cruise day

Hello Pat
We were in Leiden in April 23. We enjoy ‘town’ walking and found the RS walking tour enjoyable, easy to follow and covered all the main sights. It gave us a good overview of Leiden.

Get to Kuekenhof early and make your way to the furthest end of the garden, perhaps near the windmill and walk back to the entrance. The boat trip from the windmill was not worth the time in my opinion and I also found the food offerings in the gardens to be quite poor. The flowers were SPECTACULAR and don’t miss the exhibits in the pavilions.

Delft is beautiful and we followed the RS walking tour there as well.

You have a wonderful trip planned. Enjoy!

We followed Rick's self-guided walking tour for Leiden in his Amsterdam & the Netherlands guidebook and thought it was very good! It also includes some nice off the beaten path sights.

@chris21, I read similar reactions to the boat tour- underwhelming, at best. Thanks so much for your feedback. My husband is a morning person, so he will be very happy for an early start. And thx for the recommendation to bring a lunch to Keihenhof.

I just found a Leiden wine and cheese shop, with three- course pairings, Fromagerie Bon, but I can't find an English section of the website. It has great TripAdvisor reviews.

Thanks again.

Christine, thank you. How long did the RS Leiden walk about take you? Altho I understand that wandering off-path often happens! 😉

We were in Leiden for 6 nights in September 23. We enjoyed canal walks on our own. I was so fascinated with the star shaped design of the old walls and canals that we’d walk find the existing old city gates and many other significantly historic building in the tight city center. We enjoyed a couple of great chocolate shops on either side of the Blauwpoortsbrug crossing a main canal. We really enjoyed a meal and drink sitting at a dock or on a moored boat near the city hall. One restaurant with great food and cocktails is in an old weight house from the 1600s. There is a large cheese shop along the more modern pedestrian zone which parallels another nice walk on a canal leading to the city hall, university, etc. There are big markets spilling along the canal in front of the city hall on Wednesday and Saturday from 8-5 if you happen to be able to go before or after Keukenhof.

EDIT: I will second other’s opinion of the underwhelming boat tours and the tiny windmill museum. We had to walk past the windmill 2-4x per day and rarely saw anyone going in. We have been in other windmills on previous trips and didn’t have any desire to go in this one. The history and information posted near it was good but limited.

Mona, thanks for the hours of the Leiden markets, I was having problems finding the hours. Hopefully we will be back by the 5:00pm closing.
Which windmill museum are you talking about - in Leiden or Keikenhof?
Thanks for helping me out!

Thanks for the tip about Fromagerie Bon, Pat…that sounds right up my alley! Adding it to the list for my day trip to Leiden in May.

@Maggie D, The cheese and wine shop is closed on Tuesdays, if I have figured out Dutch days of the week correctly. They seem open all afternoon into evening. I emailed and asked if there is an English link to their website.
Hopefully I will get a Trip Report written before your adventure!

Hi Pat,
I looked back in my journal and see that I wrote, "After checking into our hotel, an early evening RS Leiden walk through passageways and hidden courtyards." My guess is that it took about 2 hours. I always take advantage of the RS city walks and I remember thinking at the time that the Leiden one was particularly good!

Enjoy the Netherlands! We love it there!

Hi Pat. The Leiden windmill, it was between our hotel and everywhere. molenmuseumdevalk.nl

Pat, may I give you some general advice? First of all, please mind the spelling of sights and places of interest. To a human it’s obvious that you meant Keukenhof, but a search engine or maps app may be less forgiving when you enter “Keikenhof”.
Secondly, I would like to suggest you to familiarize yourself with the Google Translate features. I know that we in the Netherlands are known for the fact that a lot people can speak English, but that doesn’t mean that English is everywhere. Yes, major sights, museums and attractions who attract an international crowd will have versions of their websites in English, German etc, but you shouldn’t expect English menus in every restaurant or cafe. The Google translate app has this great feature where you can upload a photo of a menu for instance and it will translate it live on your screen. You can download languages so you can even use it when you don’t have WiFi.

Dutch Traveler, thanks so much, you are always a great help here. I will practice with Google Translation app today. And I'll work on my spelling of Dutch landmarks. Thanks again!

I think I had different priorities, but I'd mention that I didn't get the idea that a canal tour would be anywhere as useful/desirable in Leiden as it is in Amsterdam. I walked miles and miles around the town. Leiden has a lot of nice museums, most of which are NOT "just paintings on the wall." That would be important if you have some rainy days, BTW. I hope you can be flexible about Keukenhof if there is rain, but it's better to go there on a weekday if you can.

Tim, yes I'm flexible about Keukenhof, as after Bruges, we are circling back and staying in Haarlem. We will see the Tulip Parade in Haarlem on our last full day, and have time earlier, in the event our first attempt for Keukenof fails.
After all the unrelenting rain we had last spring in Italy, I'm trying to develop A & B Plans to visit the tulip areas.
Safe travels and thanks for the advice.

Christine, thanks for checking your journal. You sound very organized!

For excellent beer, we enjoyed having a casual dinner at Belgish Bier Cafe Olivier.
You will see Stroopwaffles for sale everywhere, from small to large. At street stands, inside shops too. Delicious! A reason to visit and a new addiction!
I don’t recall seeing chocolates featured in Leiden but I never am looking for them. You will, however, see lots of chocolates in Bruges. On our first visit to Bruges, we bought a lot of Belgian chocolates home as gifts.
We spent a week in Leiden, loved it there. Lots of energy from its famous university( John Quincy Adams, Albert Einstein attended). Explored the canals, took a canal boat ride, and walked the city on our own, no tours.
It was do easy to do day trips to Delft ,The Hague and Rotterdam from Leiden by train. A highlight was visiting Kinderdijk with it’s 19 historic windmills outside of Rotterdam.

Suki, thanks for sharing, and the food and drink tips. We will also be going to Kindetdijk.
Safe travels!

I enjoyed and appreciated my visit to the Molen De Valk windmill museum in Leiden. It was the only windmill I visited so if you will be touring others, it might not be as worth it for you. The fact that it was small and didn't have lots of tourists visiting was a plus. It has the restored family living space of the windmill operator on the first level, a short documentary film on the history of windmills in the Netherlands, related artifacts from this and other mill, and you climb up to see the inner workings and a nice view.

I was just about to post about the windmill museum, when I saw CD from DC's post.

We didn't visit the Molen De Valk this past trip, but we did when we were in Leiden several years ago, and enjoyed it very much. We learned a lot, and enjoyed clambering around inside it.

We also bought chocolates in Leiden for gifts. I didn't note the names of the two shops, but one of them is right on the main drag, near the Wednesday and Saturday market. If Stan remembers the name (or still has a wrapper lol) I'll post it here.

CD and Jane, thanks, that Leiden windmill is on our first day walking itinerary. It will be a great introduction. Thanks again for helping out.