Leiden Historic City Canal Cruise

Leiden's historic canals and singels

Leiden grew up where the Old Rhine and the New Rhine meet, and water has shaped the city ever since. In the seventeenth century, when cloth making made it one of the largest cities in the country, Leiden was surrounded by new walls and a broad moat. The walls have gone, but the moat survives as the singels, a green ring of wide canals lined with trees and gardens around the old centre.

Inside the ring, narrower canals such as the Rapenburg, often called one of the most beautiful canals in the Netherlands, run between rows of merchant and professor houses. Your Leiden boat tour moves between the two worlds, from quiet singels with ducks and houseboats to busy canals in the shopping streets. On the way you pass a historic windmill standing on an old bastion, a reminder of how the city once ground its grain.

City Hall, the Rhine branches and the old castle mound

Leiden City Hall stands on the Breestraat, the city's main street, with its back to the New Rhine. Its long Renaissance facade dates from the late sixteenth century; a fire in 1929 destroyed much of the building, but the front was carefully restored. From the boat you see the canal side of the building and the covered Koornbrug, an old grain bridge with a roof, close by.

Nearby, the skipper points out the Burcht, a round earthen mound topped by a brick wall that is one of the oldest structures in the city, built where the two Rhine branches meet. Leiden is also famous for the long siege it survived in 1574, which ended when the land was flooded so ships could bring food. The city still celebrates its relief every year on 3 October.

The Hortus Botanicus botanical garden

The Hortus Botanicus Leiden, founded in 1590 next to the university, is the oldest botanical garden in the Netherlands and one of the oldest in the world. It was created to grow medicinal plants for students, and some of the first tulips in the country were planted here in the 1590s, the start of the Dutch love affair with the flower that later grew into a national industry.

From the water you see the garden walls and trees along the Rapenburg and the singel. If you want to visit after your cruise, it is only a few minutes on foot from the canals and makes a lovely hour, with tropical glasshouses, a reconstruction of the original sixteenth-century garden and a Japanese garden. Opening hours and tickets for the Hortus Botanicus are separate from this cruise.

Museum De Lakenhal

Museum De Lakenhal occupies the old cloth hall on the Oude Singel, built in 1640 when Leiden's woollen cloth was famous across Europe. Inspectors checked every piece of cloth in this building before it could be sold with the city's seal, and the hall's classical facade with its carved reliefs still shows the pride of that trade.

Since the nineteenth century it has been the city museum of art and history, with paintings from Leiden's Golden Age, silver, glass and objects that tell the story of the siege and the cloth industry. After a major renovation and extension it reopened in 2019. The cruise passes right in front of the building, so you can see its facade reflected in the singel, and many visitors return for a closer look later the same day.

Planning your visit: a Leiden day trip from Amsterdam

Leiden is one of the easiest day trips in the Netherlands. If you are wondering how to get to Leiden, direct trains from Amsterdam Central Station take about 35 minutes, and the airport is only about 15 minutes away by train. From Leiden Central Station, the Aalmarkt is around ten minutes on foot through the Haarlemmerstraat shopping street.

The best time to visit Leiden is from April to October, when the canals are lined with greenery and terraces. In spring you can combine a Leiden day trip from Amsterdam with the nearby tulip fields around Lisse. Departures run every hour from late morning to late afternoon, so the cruise fits well before or after the museums. On Wednesdays and Saturdays a large market fills the quays along the New Rhine.