Netherlands: City Walk
Leiden
Text and photos: Paul Smit
Hans Olijerhoek and his shop De Klare Lijn
Summary
A home game, because Leiden is the autor's home town. In this city walk fun shops, restaurants and cafes are reported on as well as cultural hot spots. The feature is enlivened with small historical vignettes. Leiden, where Rembrandt is born and has lived for 23 years, is easily the most beautiful city in the Netherlands, and after Amsterdam has the largest historical centre. This has attracted many antique shops, allowing the city to develop into a veritable magnet for lovers of all that is timeworn. Thanks to the presence of the country's largest university, Leiden is also effervescent with social events.
The feature comes with complete practical information.
Excerpts of the article
Our city walk starts at the bus stop in the Breestraat. This is where most buses coming from the station stop as well as the free taxi bus from the car park on the Haagweg. With your back to the street you walk to your left to take a right into the Pieterskerk-Choorsteeg, where you immediately stumble upon quite a variety of special shops. Noroc sells espresso machines and serves an excellent cup of coffee in its coffeehouse. Art Nail, the make-up studio across the street, is the place to go to have your nails transformed into works of art. At number 18 wool shop Ribbels offers an assortment of foreign wools and knitting descriptions. On the corner there are two second-hand clothing shops selling lots 
of old linen and hats. You will be heading to the left, but on your right you can see still more hats: Het Hoedengilde (The Millinery Guild), with many designs inspired by the Far East.
As you turn left into the Langebrug, you run into the flower bonanza of Fiori. Owner Joan Stam uses rare and sometimes centuries-old varieties of flowers to create the most stunning flower arrangements. >>> <<< ‘t Spiegel at No. 91 radiates French joie de vivre from a hundred curlicue-framed mirrors.
A bit further down a narrow gate awaits us. It is the Gekroonde Liefdepoort (‘Crowned Love Gate’), where once Jan Steen, the painter of chaotic 17th century household scenes, lived. Behind the gate you will find a successful mixture of modern and old hofjes (courtyards), the Pieter Gerritsz Speckhofje (in the back on the right) being a veritable pearl. This is the only one of the 35 hofjes in Leiden that has all its brick houses painted white. >>>
We walk straight ahead into the Kloksteeg, passing the Templum Salomonis, the oldest bookstore of the city. The Prentenkabinet (Print Gallery), a few doors down, is one of the best Leiden restaurants. It once was home to the actual Prentenkabinet, but fell into decay. With much attention to detail however it has been restored and once again many old Dutch engravings hang on its walls. >>>
<<< On your right you will find the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden. The last thing you expect when you enter this modest Dutch canal house is an enormous hall encompassing a complete Egyptian temple. >>>
<<< This oasis of green puts you in the mood for the Hortus Botanicus (Botanical Garden). You can get there by turning left at the Doelensteeg, passing by the Camino Real – the most creative kitchen in Leiden in stunning Eighties design – and then when you are back on the Rapenburg, walk under the gate next to the Academiegebouw on your right. The Hortus is the country’s oldest botanical garden and is famous for its greenhouses with tropical natural wonders such as the Brazilian giant water lily and the amorphophallus. A bit further up, Japanese have dedicated a garden to plant collector Von Sieboldt. On Sunday snippets of classical music drift through the gardens, as the Orangerie is transformed into a concert hall.
My personal favourite is the Clusius garden, an authentic copy of the Hortus as it was at the time of the opening in 1590. It is a beautiful courtyard, with an orderly collection of all the plants considered of importance to medical studies at the time.
Continuing along the Rapenburg, you run into the Van der Werfpark, built on the spot where in 1807 a ship with 18 tons of gunpowder exploded. Against all regulations it had nevertheless been moored in the middle of the city, so that the skippers could satisfy their thirst for a drink. The blast could be heard all the way in The Hague. >>>
<<< On the far corner you find the Klare Lijn. Although Leiden is overrun with antiques shops, owner Hans Olijerhoek has always hung on to his own quirky vision. He limits himself to the period between 1920 and 1960 and has lots of glass, lamps, school plates and art deco statuettes. The window is overflowing with wooden electric appliances from the Thirties, full of wooden knobs, levers and meters. Could it be that this interest in scientific goodies derives from Hans’s own background? Not long ago he was a math teacher. Hence of course the name the Klare Lijn – ‘Clean Line’.
The second surprise is Café De Bontekoe diagonally across the street. It was designed during the turn of the century as a butcher shop and is still decorated with tiles painted in the style of the Hollandse School with Dutch landscapes full of cows. This venue is mostly frequented by creative forty-somethings, who deal with their midlife crises by all getting slowly tipsy here in the evenings.
To the left around the corner, at 9 Beschuitsteeg, you find the most peculiar museum in Leiden. You cannot find it in any museum overview or travel guide, and even though I live in Leiden, I only just discovered this place myself: The Leiden American Pilgrim Museum. I have come to like this smallest of museums more than all the others, because you don’t get the information from information boards, but it gets told to you in person, by director/curator/collector/guide Jeremy Bangs himself. What could be better than a good story, accompanied by all kinds of objects, pictures, books and curiosities. There are no display cases, you are a guest in an authentic 17th-century sitting room where any Pilgrim Father would feel right at home. I won’t tell you anything more about the pilgrims, let Jeremy do that. His English is perfect because he was born in the United States.
Mick Palarczyk | Features, Photos and Text
