Leiden and The Hague

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Today I took a side trip to the nearby cities of Leiden and The Hague. The first is a university town famous as the birthplace of Rembrandt and a place where the Pilgrims stayed for awhile before they sailed on the Mayflower to America. There are plaques in town honoring both, but I won’t waste you time by showing you photos of plaques. Leiden also has a number of good museums. The Boerhaave Museum specializes in the history of science, particularly medicine. There is a reconstruction of an anatomical theater that was once used for demonstrating dissections. There’s also a good section on water management, a very important discipline in this country that is largely below sea level. After lunch I caught the train to The Hague and visited two art museums. The first is devoted to M C Escher who I remember fondly from my dorm room days. I used to have a poster of the intersecting lizards. Next I visited the Mauritshuis Museum which has a fine collection of fine art, including Vermeer’s Girl With the Pearl Earring. I was about worn out after a busy day of sightseeing and a lot of walking, so I treated myself to dinner at a nice French restaurant where I enjoyed roast duck and a glass of Bordeaux.

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