Leiden gave the world a university, a painter and a puzzle about a Roman fort. The fort was called Matilo, and it stood on the south bank of the Oude Rijn, the old arm of the Rhine, in what is now the Roomburg district west of the old town, between about AD 40 and 270. It guarded the frontier that ran along the river from Germany to the sea, with a garrison of auxiliary troops and a civilian settlement beside it, and its name survives on the Roman road maps. Today the site is a green park, Park Matilo, where the outlines of the fort are marked out, and information panels tell the story. The Lower German Limes was inscribed by UNESCO in 2021.
The city that grew up later is a delight. Leiden got Holland's first university in 1575, as a reward for withstanding a Spanish siege, and its canals, gabled houses and windmills are among the most attractive in the country. Rembrandt was born here in 1606, and the Pilgrim Fathers lived here for a decade before sailing to America. The Hortus Botanicus, one of the oldest botanical gardens in the world, is where the first tulips in the Netherlands were planted.
Riding in this part of Holland is calm and flat. The roads across the polders are narrow and straight, with ditches on both sides, and every junction has bicycles, since the Dutch cycle everywhere and have priority in every sense. Speed limits are low and enforced by cameras, and a motorcycle is expected to move at the pace of the general flow. The weather is changeable, with a sea wind that can push you sideways, and rain showers pass through, so wear waterproofs. April and May, when the bulb fields along the coast are in bloom, are glorious, and the fields around Lisse are a short ride to the north.
Leiden is a city of over a hundred thousand, so fuel is no trouble, and Leiderdorp, next door, has stations on the main road. Parking in the old centre is restricted, and the best option is to leave the bike in a car park by the station and walk. The ride list heads east to the Dutch Water Defence Lines, a chain of forts and flooded fields built to protect Amsterdam, which is a very different sort of frontier.