Experience the best of Leiden

Leiden lies where two arms of the Rhine meet, and its old centre is a web of canals lined with gabled houses and bridges. The university, founded in 1575 by William of Orange as a reward for the city's resistance to a Spanish siege, is the oldest in the country, and its buildings crowd the Rapenburg canal. Rembrandt was born here in 1606, and the Burcht, a circular fortress on an artificial mound, looks over the rooftops.

The Hortus Botanicus, founded in 1590, is one of the oldest botanical gardens in the world, and the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden displays an Egyptian temple. Museum De Lakenhal houses the city's art, the Boerhaave Museum covers science, and the De Valk windmill is a museum. Poems are painted on walls across the city. Tulip fields around Lisse and the Keukenhof, the coast at Katwijk, and The Hague lie close by.

Leidse kaas, a cheese with cumin seeds, and hutspot, a stew of potatoes, carrots and onions, are the local flavours; each 3 October, the day Leiden's siege was lifted in 1574, residents eat herring, white bread and hutspot to remember it. Spring is the season for tulips and bulb fields, and the canals are lively in summer.