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Walking north along the Rapenburg, the mansion of the Van Leyden family displayed their world-wide interests through sculptured garlands of exotic plants and shells. |
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Major collections of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman art, as well as archaeological material illuminating early Netherlandish history, are displayed in the National Museum of Antiquities. |
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The museum’s Egyptian temple was donated by Egypt in gratitude for the Netherlands’ archaeological help in excavations in the area flooded by the Aswan Dam. |
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Across the canal, 17th-century investors built several separate houses unified within a single design. |
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The final block of the Rapenburg contains mansions that around 1650 replaced a large medieval convent, that had itself been converted to be a palace for the Prince of Orange. |
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Several mansions preserve fine interiors behind their sculptured doorways. This is the entrance to the Leiden branch of Central College of Iowa. |
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On the left, the Van Brouchoven Almshouse provides mid-17th-century quiet. The overseers held meetings in a chamber above the entrance to the quadrangle. |
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Across from the court house and medieval prison (called the Gravensteen) is a café in the house where the jailor’s wife used to prepare food for prisoners. |
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The Gravensteen’s gallery allowed officials to watch the judicial murder of Mennonites accused of heresy before the Reformation. |
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On a corner of the square in front of the prison and court house, the stepped-gable marks the medieval Latin School. Rembrandt studied here. |
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The Latin School door is part of the 1599 renovation of the façade. Inside the windows, a diorama suggests Rembrandt’s school days. Follow the Diefsteeg alley. |
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The Diefsteeg has a good Chinese restaurant, an antiquarian book shop with a focus on steamship travel, and two antique shops. |
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A town house built in 1619-20 now serves as an amateur art club, with frequent exhibitions. |
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Inside the entrance, a fine plaster ceiling shows the sort of embellishment still found in several old houses in Leiden. The house also has a room with a ceiling painted in the 17th century. |
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At the end of the Pieterskerkgracht, a narrow alley returns us to the Breestraat, where this 18th-century town house is now a cinema. |
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Across the street, the front remains of another mansion demolished thirty years ago for a post office. |
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Built in the last years of the 16th century, the Regional Waterways Board (Hoogheemraadschap van Rijnland) is beautifully preserved. |
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The gable of this 17th-century house (now a restaurant) may have inspired some of the details of the imposing Concert Hall nearby, 250 years later. |
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Across the street is a simpler form of the scrolled gable, once the house of Professor Justus Lipsius (professor of history, died 1606). |
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Leiden’s Concert Hall (Stadsgehoorzaal) presents performances by internationally known musicians. |
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The Concert Hall occupies part of the property of the medieval St. Catherine’s Hospital, whose chapel now serves the Walloon (French Huguenot) church. |
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Next to the Hoogheemraadschap, a former bank building and a former butcher shop (now part of a bookstore) represent architecture from ca. 1890-1910. |
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A fine house from ca. 1740 was constructed by combining two very narrow 16th-century houses behind one front. |
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The Golden Turk was once one of Leiden’s most magnificent homes. The sculptures of Neptune and Mercury are signed by Pieter Xavery, 1673. |
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Returning to the Breestraat, we pass the façade of Leiden’s Town Hall, built in the last years of the 16th century. Carillon concerts on Wednesday and Saturday sound from the bell tower. |
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18th-century elegance can be imagined, with tea served in the bay window that gives a view of traffic up and down the Breestraat. |
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Severely disfigured by the plate-glass of the modernized ground floor, this barbaric crudity was awarded a town prize for successful modernization of a listed17th-century monument. |
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The bridge in front of the two houses leads to the Yarn Market (Garenmarkt). A sculpture of a ball of yarn sits on top of the market’s water pump. We continue along the Steenschuur, however. |
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Seen from the Van der Werf park, the Lodewijkskerk (church of St. Louis) on the Steenschuur was built around 1500. After the Reformation, the chapel became the guild hall of serge weavers. |
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The Langebrug has some of Leiden’s most picturesque houses. Next to one of them (the painter Jan Steen’s house) a little portal takes us behind the houses. |
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About 500 years old, few houses this small survive.The gate is called the Gecroonde Liefdespoort (crowned love gate). The painter Jan Steen lived here. |
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The gardens we enter have a view towards the Pieterskerk. We get there through an almshouse at the far corner. |
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The Pieter van der Spek Almshouse suggests what Pilgrim houses were like. A doorway at the far end takes us into a narrow alley. |
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The Van der Spek Alley (Van der Speksteeg) passes medieval walls, lining our path to the Pieterskerk. Looking back, we see the town hall spire. |
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Across the street is Templum Salomonis, a book shop, publishing house, or library since the fourteenth century. Poems in many languages are painted on numerous blank walls in Leiden. |
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Houses around the church wall provided rents to help cover expenses such as repairs to church windows. The designer was Arent van ‘s Gravezande. |
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The Pieterskerk West front. The porch was extended upwards to house the bellows of the new organ constructed in 1637. |
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