Leiden; Friday, 05 August, 2022

The hotel let me have a late checkout, so I was able to work out of the hotel all morning through until 2pm when I checked out, headed over to the station and picked up the train a couple of stops down the line to Leiden.

I grabbed some lunch from a mini-supermarket in the station and headed over to my hotel in Leiden where I checked in and finished off my days work out of the hotel room there.

I powered down the laptop just after 6pm and then headed out into the town to go for a wander.

My first stop was to head into the historic centre of the city, across the ring of canals that helped form part of the outer fortifications of the city and then on into the very centre of town. I spent quite a long time wandering along the canals of the city centre before finding myself at the very picturesque area around the confluence of the Old and New branches of the Rhine.

From there it was a short walk over to the ruins of the city’s castle – the Burcht van Leiden. On a the top of a man-made hill that was built to protect the city from the waters of the Rhine are the ruins of a 12th century circular fort, which you can still go into and climb up onto the battlements, from where – at one of the highest points in the city you can see not very much as so many buildings have been built up close by!

From the castle I continued to have a wander through the city centre before heading back to the hotel as the last of the light of the day was fading.