We are taking another look at Leiden, one of the most beautiful towns in the Netherlands.
This is part three of our coverage in a series that already took you on an extensive walking
tour, a very organized route that we brought you.
Be sure to look for that one in our collection.
And we also took you on a boat ride in a different video about Leiden.
Well this is part three and we're just going to roam around the city a little bit more.
It's so attractive, and there were more scenes to show you not presented in the other two
movies.
So let's take a closer look.
Wandering along the canals enjoying the reflections, heading for the shopping streets and some
historic monuments and museums.
Since we've already covered the specific routings that you would enjoy on a detailed walking
tour in our other video, in this movie we're just going to take kind of a random ramble
from one beautiful part of town to another.
This is kind of like a video postcard rack where we're going to look at some of the buildings,
we will see the dogs sitting out on the sidewalk and people at their terrace tables, or just
out for a stroll in the historic neighborhoods.
Sure there are lots of monuments and important sites that you'll want to see, but one of
the joys and being in a place like Leiden is just simply taking a walk and watching
the bicycles.
At the end of this short movie we will take you inside two of the main museums, covering
history and culture.
We will also have a look inside the modern train station, which is the transportation
heart of the city.
You'll find it really is worth getting up very early when you're staying in a city like
Leiden with so many tranquil canals, to catch the sunrise.
It's usually not too windy at that time of day and it's so pretty and golden and peaceful
and calm.
It's something that most people would simply sleep through, but this is what they're missing.
In many other cities that you will visit there is nothing to see it sunrise.
You might be staying in a hotel and surrounded by big buildings, and you can't even see the
horizon.
So don't bother getting up early in that case, but in cities in the Netherlands with all
those canals, you're bound to find a beautiful sunrise.
Blauwpoortshaven is the small boat harbor right in the middle of town and the broad
plaza next to it is the Beestenmarkt.
All around you'll find restaurants and there's a fountain in the middle, benches to sit down
on.
Its one of the most interesting parts of the city, with the main docking area for the little
excursion boats that can take you on a canal cruise.
The canal extends south and then it gets wider and is home to a number of these old-fashioned
houseboats.
They had been river barges, some of them 100 years old, and now people live on them enjoying
a central location right in the heart of town.
Along with the boat traffic there are lots of bicycles on the busy streets that go around
this inner harbor, especially in the morning at rush hour.
You've got hundreds of people going by on that beloved two-wheeled foot-pumped vehicle
that provides the main transportation in this country.
During their long history the Dutch have developed some fundamental solutions for the climate
crisis, starting with windmills about 800 years ago which they used for energy and for
pumping seawater out to reclaim the land for farming, right through today with their increasing
use of bicycles, while living in a relatively dense population zone that encourages the
use of bicycles, public transit and walking as your basic transportation.
The Dutch are also experts at protecting their shoreline by building effective dikes, and
with strict coastal zone management.
Their many canals also drain water from the landscape and provide for efficient shipping.
We can learn a lot from these clever Dutch.
Most of the streets are shared with automobiles, but there are just so many more bicycles than
cars that bicycles have the right-of-way.
Of course everybody's familiar with basic rules of the road and is very polite when
they're driving and yield the right-of-way to the bicycles, which also creates peaceful
conditions for pedestrians.
If you did get up early and take a little walk, you might as well have breakfast at
one of the most scenic locations in town along that main canal that goes through the heart
of the city, the New Rhine.
It's got lovely cafés, some of them on floating barges.
PUT ME The many bridges of Leiden are another lovely
site that you'll enjoy while walking around.
Most Dutch cities have their canals, and bridges, but it does seem that Leiden has way more
of them than average, and the second most number of historic buildings after Amsterdam.
Perhaps the oldest structure and town is the Burcht.
It's a fortress that started as early as the ninth century as a hill of turf and clay,
and developed over time into this solid brick fortress, 20 meters high, providing defenders
a fortified bastion with an excellent view.
A few blocks over we've got the main pedestrian shopping street of the city, Haarlemerstraat,
a prime spot for people-watching or grabbing some inexpensive fast food.
Leiden University was founded in 1575, making it the oldest in the country, with 35,000
students, and there are several other smaller colleges in the city, some industrial, some
trade, some technical schools and there is a university medical center and the school
for vocational education located in the heart of the historic center.
From here, let's jump over to the wonderful Leiden Centraal, the excellent, efficient,
modern train station of the city.
If you're visiting Leiden a you will probably be arriving and departing from this station
because trains are definitely the best way to get around in this country.
You don't need to drive, the trains will take you everywhere, and there is an efficient
bus system to connect to your destination or bring you to, perhaps, some smaller towns
that don't have a train.
Dutch stations can also be a good place to grab a meal, maybe just drink, a soda, a juice
or a takeout sandwich -- that's always a very popular item here.
You can eat it in the station or bring it on the train.
No problem eating on the train, just don't make a mess.
It's a small shopping mall, complete with clothing stores.
To Amsterdam, it takes 30 minutes, or to the Hague, 11 minutes.
Train service in the morning is frequent.
The first station was built here in 1842.
The current one is the fourth station – it opened in 1996.
The station is a busy place at rush hour, like here at 8: it's 30 in the morning, but
during the day, otherwise, it's not so crowded.
And that's a good time to be making your trips, when you will have no trouble getting a seat
on board the train.
You pay for the ride with an O-V chip card, that's a debit card that you can purchase
upon arrival in the country, and at many train stations.
You load some money into the card and use it for all trains and trams, buses and subways
throughout the nation.
Out front is a busy bus station, but we can walk to our next destination.
We don't even need those little shuttle vans.
It takes just five minutes to walk from the station to the Museum of Ethnography, for
a look at cultures around the world And then we’ll continue on to the Museum
of Antiquities with its display of archaeological treasures.
Leiden is home to the Museum Folkenkunde, or in English, the National Museum of Ethnology.
It's a culture history museum's featuring artifacts and presentations from many countries
around the world.
It can be considered the first ethnographic museum in Europe because it was the first
one that displayed artifacts as more than just curiosities.
From its earliest beginnings in 1816, it was designed to conduct scientific research and
educate the public, using the artifacts to illustrate basic cultural principles.
They have a large collection of items from native America from the plains up to the Arctic.
The museum developed a dramatic and innovative way to present information about the cultures
using projections on the wall of video and still images, turning what had been large
empty, boring, blank walls into vibrant displays of a living culture.
The sensitive way in which objects are presented elevates them from mere daily artifacts to
true works of art.
After enjoying that large room of North American objects, you'll move to the Pacific Island
collection with a stunning number of images from New Guinea, with carved and painted ancestral
gods.
Polynesia is also represented with some young Tahitian dancers and carved objects from throughout
the Polynesian triangle including these Maori figures with carved tattoos from New Zealand,
and a variety of fascinating fishhooks.
Some eerie skeletons, backed up by another, celebrate Mexico's Day of the Dead, along
with native fabrics and ceramic items, and quite valuable pottery from Central America.
The museum's first major acquisitions were 5000 items from Japan that were collected
in the 1830s at a time when the Dutch were the only Europeans allowed inside Japan, making
these items unique and extremely valuable.
You might recall that Japan closed itself off to the outside world from the 17th through
the mid-19th centuries, but the Netherlands was the only European country that maintained
an active trading agreement, operated by the Dutch East India Company for 200 years, based
in this village in Nagasaki, as we learn from friendly museum visitor.
The Japanese Emperor decided that they had too much Western influence.
There were the Dutch and the Portuguese.
And the Portuguese protested, they didn't want to leave, and they got kicked out.
But the Dutch trader, he was greedy, he didn't want to fight the Japanese, and he decided,
okay well if they want us to leave, let's go.
Let me dismantle everything.
I'm not leaving them one nail.
So because he dismantled everything, and the Emperor heard that, he said he is a guy who
really follows my orders.
So, and then another advisor of the Emperor said maybe it's not such a good idea to completely
isolate ourselves and leave one channel of communication out for the, to the outside
world.
So he invited the Dutch back and gave them this artificial islands on the coast of Nagasaki,
which was originally constructed for the Portuguese, and gave them effectively a monopoly
He was very interested in the guns and cannons.
They made good money on cannons.
And the Dutch took the ceramics.
Yes ceramics and all kinds of other goods, precious metals, whatever how do you know
so much about that?
That's History Channel.
(Laughter) Okay, thank you sir.
The Chinese collection got started way back in the early 1800s by King William I who founded
his Royal Cabinet of Curiosities with some of these Chinese items that were later added
to the main ethnographic collection.
It's The museum moved to its present location in
1937, which underwent major expansion in the 1990s and now it is joined with two other
Dutch museums to form the national Museum of World Cultures with a total collection
of nearly half a million items, including the famous Benin bronzes from Africa.
The museum also has some fun with contemporary and innovative temporary displays such as
this short black and white video that challenges your mind.
This is not a museum that's only for displaying objects.
It's an active research museum involved with cultures of the past and today.
The museum's stated mission is to awaken our curiosity about the enormous cultural diversity
that enriches the world in which we are all linked together, to increase the understanding
of these mutual bonds, which allows us to inspire an open attitude to the world and
help to shape a global community.
Finally, to complete our Leiden visit we're taking another pleasant walk along the canals,
just about 800 meters from one museum to the next, visiting now the Museum of Antiquities,
a fine archaeological collection with major holdings from ancient Egypt, Rome, Greece,
and elsewhere.
This Egyptian temple was going to be submerged under the Nile waters because of construction
of the Aswan High Dam, but the Netherlands played a role in the rescue operation.
To show their gratitude, the Egyptians gave this temple to the Dutch people.
We will see more of Egypt in a moment.
There's a large collection of Roman statues carved in marble and a lot of jewelry, and
household artifacts as well as glassware.
Ancient Rome did occupy the southern Netherlands up to the Rhine River placing Leiden right
at the frontier, where the Romans built a fortification protecting them from the barbaric
Germanic tribes on the other side.
There are four permanent exhibitions here featuring the Roman, Greek, Etruscan and Egyptian
with Near East.
And then there is an exhibit on Dutch civilizations as well.
Among the many Greek treasures are dozens of vases from Mycaene and Corinth depicting
mythological and daily life in their painted figures.
Also, with the Greeks you get some very poignant statues commemorating the dead.
Some of these are carvings from tombstones bidding farewell to the beloved departed.
The collection of this museum began with an inheritance of about 150 antiquities that
was bequeathed to Leiden University back in 1743 when it was placed on public display.
The collection grew with further purchases and in the early 19th century, the museum
led various expeditions to do archaeology in the Mediterranean area.
The large array of Etruscan tombs is a highlight of the collection.
Ancient Greek statues date from the archaic, into the classical, through the Hellenistic
periods when lifelike poses seem to be in motion, including some gilded bronze.
From Mesopotamia we have the world's oldest form of writing.
A realistic model of an ancient Roman house from Pompeii with an atrium and open courtyard,
but the red tiles couldn't protect it from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
A large part of this collection consists of many objects covering 2000 years of the ancient
history of Egypt: statues, there's jewelry, there are mummies and sarcophagi, and funeral
objects depicting daily life.
And there are canopic jars used in that mummification process.
This comprehensive collection also reaches much further back in time, into the Stone
Age, where we see the crudely chipped and finally polished stone tools.
With my graduate degree in archaeology I feel right at home, and you will discover there
is something for everybody to enjoy here in one of Europe's best museums of antiquity.
We have more movies about Leiden and many more videos about the Netherlands that you
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