The Vliet, a calm green waterway running between Leiden and The Hague, looks like any other Dutch canal, lined with reeds, cyclists and the occasional houseboat. But it follows, more or less, the route of one of the oldest canals in Western Europe. In about AD 47, the Roman general Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo ordered his soldiers to dig a canal linking the Rhine and the Meuse estuaries, so that boats could move supplies along the coast without risking the North Sea. The historian Tacitus says Corbulo did it partly to keep his troops busy. Traces of the Fossa Corbulonis have been found here at Vlietwijk, near Voorschoten, and the site is part of the Lower German Limes World Heritage Site, inscribed in 2021.
The Roman frontier here followed the Rhine to the sea, with forts at places like Leiden and Valkenburg. What survives is mostly underground, known from excavation: timbers, ditches, pottery and the occasional ship. Above ground, the landscape is a flat, intensively used mixture of meadows, suburbs, greenhouses and roads, threaded together by waterways.
As riding goes, this is not a destination for curves. Roads are busy, roundabouts frequent and cyclists have priority in many places. But it is a good stop on the way between Leiden and The Hague, and the area has a lot to offer once you get off the bike. Leiden, just to the north, is a beautiful canal city with the oldest university in the Netherlands, founded in 1575 as a reward for the city's resistance during the Spanish siege of 1574. Rembrandt was born there, and its museums include the national antiquities museum, full of Roman finds from these very canals.
The Hague, a short distance to the south-west, has the Mauritshuis, Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring and the beach at Scheveningen. The coast to the west offers dunes and sea air, with long, open roads that are pleasant if not exciting.
Voorschoten has fuel and supermarkets, and both Leiden and The Hague have everything. Try Leidse kaas, a cheese flavoured with cumin, and on the coast fresh herring with onions in early summer. Expect wind, rain showers and sudden bursts of sun, sometimes within the same hour.