Old World Charm in Holland--still there!

With the weather being so beautiful we decided to make a trip to the seaside. Last year we had visited Zandfoort several times; now a friend recommended Noordwijk. Once we had found the right one on the car's GPS, we were almost there (40km).

                                                                            
There was a strong cold breeze coming from the sea so that we agreed to skip our beach experience and drove on to Leiden, a mere 10km away.

A city of about 130,000 inhabitants, it houses Holland's oldest university, founded in 1575. I was  hoping to see some of the old buildings, -like when we watch a show about Inspector Morse, playing in Oxford- but all we saw driving  along were modern concrete buildings.

The town center was hard to find due to some missing directions and the navvy (GPS) sent us around the block several times. We parked in a area reserved for residents so that we felt under pressure not too linger to long. A cute little center with all these picturesque "Grachten" like in many other towns and a windmill museum:

 An American Pilgrim's Museum only consists of 2 rooms, but the curator is a very knowledgeable guy who explains everything very well. There is also a hotel "Mayflower" and Museum Boerhaave, the Dutch National Museum for Science and Medicine. If we had had more time we could have gone on a boats tour around the city's Grachten (canals). Maybe we should go back; there is so much to see!