Leiden is a college town and home to the oldest university in The Netherlands. It is a city with several canals, similar to Amsterdam. The boats simply meander about allowing their passengers to picnic on top and to enjoy the wonderful, scenic views.
Leiden is also home to The Netherland's second largest 17th century town centre with the Amsterdam town centre being the largest. Talk about old! Wow! As we drifted throughout the streets and along the many canals, we couldn't help but to be in awe of the old and beautiful architecture! The city is a photographer's heaven!
For you art buffs, do you know where Rembrandt was born and raised??? Yes.. in Leiden. One woman told us that his home no longer exists, but that we would find a monument on the land where it was once located. Another woman told us that it was the building where a plaque can be found embedded on its side. Given the conflicting information, we don't know which exact spot he lived on/in, but we did enjoy seeing both reference points and we took photos so that we could share these with you.
Much of our day was spent drifting throughout the meandering streets and experiencing a local market that was rich with fresh foods, flowers, etc. We tasted samplings of cheese and olives. We watched as others seemed to devour fresh seafood that, for now, seemed a bit out of our comfort zones. We saw many interesting bikes, of which I took several photos.
Needless to say, we saw unbelievably old buildings and we went into what appeared to be an old church turned into some sort of community hall. This experience was quite fascinating to us. This church was extremely old and it had a floor made of tombs dating back to the 1600's, if not earlier. Clearly this was a sacred space. Yet built on one area of the floor, where tombs were partially visible, was a wooden stage. In addition, the overall space was being used for today's Leiden marathon registration. Presumed runners where walking throughout the hall minding to their needs without notice to the tombs that lie directly beneath their feet.
So, what do Europeans do in the middle of a lazy Saturday afternoon? As they say, "while in Rome". ;-) Yes, we did it too... we sat outside and sipped coffee while we people watched! As we were walking about looking for a place to have a light lunch I spotted a small and vacant table on top of a bridge where a quaint restaurant had claimed that space for their tables. We claimed this space as ours and there we sat! While there, we enjoyed a nice light lunch which consisted (in part) of asparagus soup (white asparagus is abundant here) and two cups of coffee (more like expresso really). We had found ourselves an ideal location to watch the meandering boats move about below us and to observe the many people enjoying a beautiful Leiden afternoon.
Sometimes very specific things happen in life that we know we will never forget. Among the many unique and memorable experiences yesterday we did have one specific encounter that we can now cherish. While drifting about and taking photos over by the Rembrandt markers, we encountered an elderly woman who had asked us something in Dutch. After sharing with her that we did not understand, she began speaking in broken English. She inquired about us and we inquired about her. As we shared, we learned that during WWII (at age 11) she was taken to a concentration camp located in Jakarta. There she survived 5 years, but her mother was killed. She had a sister who also survived the camp, but her sister went mad after the war and she died two years ago. We also learned that her father was separated from her and she didn't know until many years after the war that he had survived too and thus, she was able to reunite with him. Somehow her father had either lost his legs or the ability to use his legs during the war. She said that he could only crawl and so that's what he did. I asked her if she speaks to children in schools to share her story with them. She said that she does. This was a conversation that I wish I had captured on film so that I could also share more of the details and the visible struggle that could be seen looking through her eyes.
Europe is full of history, a photo heaven and a place that we will continue to discover and to share...
