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Lovely Leiden, Part 2

I ran out of room before I got to the food. We had some great meals. Our first full day we had a great lunch at Koetshuis de Burcht, right by the old fortifications in the city center. I had very good asparagus soup, and DH had an incredible veal tonnato sandwich. Huge and delicious.

Our dinner that night was at Ristorante Fratelli, excellent Italian food. We shared a very good 4 cheese pizza, as well as an appetizer of prawns in olive oil, garlic, and peppers.

The next day we had lunch in the den Haag train station, at the Seltzer Fish Bar. We were afraid one order of (very tasty) fish and chips wouldn't be enough, so we also ordered a bowl of asparagus soup (it was asparagus season.) The soup came in a big bowl, and had lots of ham (?) in it. We had enough food for 3 or 4 people, and it was all good.

That evening, we had dinner at La Plancha, a Spanish restaurant at the west end of the main canal, near the only other remaining city gate. We ordered the tapas platter, and it was all good. And definitely big enough for two.

Our last full day, we splurged for dinner. We went to Visrestaurant "Crabbetje," and did something we've never done before. We each ordered the four-course chef's tasting menu, and let chef recommend appropriate wines for each course. It was magnificent. After an amuse bouche of fish mousse, we each got a selection of four appetizers, the star of which was raw tuna wasabi. The next course was seared scallops with cous-cous; the main course was three kinds of sautéed fish served with a potato cake and good vegetables. Dessert could be either sweet or cheese; I opted for the cheese plate; Stan had chocolate mousse over cheesecake with a créme de cassis syrup. The cheese plate had four different cheeses and a bit of fruit. Very nice.

Other thoughts: since we were bracketing our RS tour with time in the Netherlands, we not only got the TripKey cards, we also bought 30-day museumkaarts as soon as we got to Haarlem. If you like mueums, the passes are a bargain. I haven't counted how many museums we visited, but we never had to worry about the cost. The only museum we visited that did not accept the museumkaart was the Escher. (Bummer, but the Escher was a must-see for us.)

We were very surprised at how easy it was to get around in Den Haag. The streets are wide and almost traffic-free, and there are handy signs for major sights posted at regular intervals.

Our overall assessment? Definitely all thumbs up. We had a great time, and would be glad to revisit Leiden and Den Haag.

Posted by
4100 posts

Lovely report Jane and it sounds like you and Stan had a perfectly lovely dinner to cap off your special anniversary trip.

Posted by
985 posts

Wowie - you really saw a lot in your four extra days in the Netherlands. So happy for the recc. on restaurants and description of where you stayed. I know we will return to nl. in the future and will probably rent in places other than just Amsterdam. So happy you had such a nice visit and that your hubby wasn't sick for long.

How did you like your RS tour?

Posted by
6528 posts

I was tired last night when I posted this, and forgot to include a big THANK YOU to all the folks on this forum who gave us such great advice, especially tonfromleiden. The tips about train travel, TripKeys, and the museumkaart just made our whole trip so much more enjoyable. Thank you all very much.

Posted by
6528 posts

Mona, it was a lovely trip. How was your stay? And you went on to Switzerland after the Netherlands, right?

Nance, the Best of Europe tour was very good. We had done the tour before, but our guide Dimitri made everything special. I'm still planning on posting a trip report, if I ever get even close to caught up here at home.

Posted by
6528 posts

Ton, it was great. Thanks again; you were a big help.