Discover Leiden at your own pace: a historic walking route with stories told where they happened.
Leiden is a city you should do on foot. Not because you have to, but because that is how the city reads best: along the water, across bridges, from square to square. The Komijn Route has a name you cannot place right away, and that suits a walk that keeps taking you somewhere slightly different from where you expected.
This route takes you through the city in about two and a half hours and fifteen stops, roughly five kilometres in total. You begin and end at Molen de Valk, so you walk a loop. Along the way you pass the Hortus Botanicus, pause at the Nieuwsteegbrug to read about the gunpowder disaster, and walk by way of the Pieterskerk to De Burcht. By the time you reach Museum De Lakenhal, you are almost back where you started.
At every stop you read what happened here, look at old photographs and prints of this exact spot, and get a small task or question. There is nothing to prepare: you open the route, set out and follow the walk from point to point. How much time you take along the way is up to you. The walk is not about the finish but about being under way.
You walk at your own pace, without a guide and without a group. You buy the route, start when you are in Leiden and then have 48 hours. As soon as you start, your digital goodie bag arrives by e-mail with tips for the way and a button to pick the route up again at any time.
Looking at a city is best done slowly. After the Komijn Route you know Leiden not just from the map but from the pavement, the bridge and the quay — and you know where you want to look further next time.