Haarlem
Teylers Museum, the oldest museum in the Netherlands, full of fossils, instruments and drawings.
Route by public transport ↗
A gift from Orange, sixteen Nobel Prizes later.
In 1575 William of Orange gave Leiden a university. Almost five centuries later it is one of the oldest and best-known universities in Europe. Sixteen Nobel laureates studied, earned their doctorate, taught or worked there, and three generations of the royal family sat in its lecture halls.
Leiden became a city of knowledge. In the 17th century students came from all over Europe, and Rembrandt and René Descartes both enrolled. The university built a botanical garden, an observatory and an anatomy theatre. Around 1900 physics made Leiden world-famous: Lorentz, Zeeman and Kamerlingh Onnes won the Nobel Prize, and Kamerlingh Onnes' laboratory was the first in the world to liquefy helium. Albert Einstein was a professor by special appointment. The brothers Jan and Niko Tinbergen both won a Nobel Prize, one for economics, the other for medicine. The timeline below shows all sixteen laureates with a Leiden connection, following the university's own list. Many of their instruments are on show at Rijksmuseum Boerhaave.
A university is a gift that keeps on giving. What William of Orange gave Leiden in 1575 still enriches the Netherlands and the world almost 450 years later.
The university's great moments and all sixteen Nobel laureates with a Leiden connection. Pick a colour to follow one story.
After the siege of Leiden, William of Orange founds the first university of the northern Netherlands.
See it at: Academy Building, RapenburgThe university lays out a physic garden. A few years later Carolus Clusius plants the first tulips there.
See it at: Hortus botanicus Leiden →The young Rembrandt van Rijn is registered as a student, but soon chooses painting instead.
See it at: Museum De Lakenhal →French philosopher René Descartes enrols to study mathematics. He lived in the Dutch Republic for some twenty years.
See it at: Academy Building, RapenburgLeiden gets one of the first university observatories in the world.
See it at: Old ObservatoryHerman Boerhaave becomes professor. His bedside teaching draws students from all over Europe.
See it at: Rijksmuseum Boerhaave →Jacobus van 't Hoff, the very first Nobel laureate in chemistry, studied in Leiden.
Hendrik Lorentz, professor in Leiden, and his former student Pieter Zeeman share the prize for their work on light and magnetism.
See it at: Rijksmuseum Boerhaave →Heike Kamerlingh Onnes' laboratory liquefies helium for the first time in the world. Leiden becomes the coldest place on earth.
See it at: Rijksmuseum Boerhaave →Johannes Diderik van der Waals studied and earned his doctorate in Leiden.
Tobias Asser, who earned his doctorate in Leiden, receives the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on international law.
The Leiden professor who discovered superconductivity wins the prize for his research into extreme cold.
See it at: Rijksmuseum Boerhaave →Albert Einstein is professor by special appointment in Leiden from 1920 to 1946, and a close friend of physicist Paul Ehrenfest.
Leiden professor Willem Einthoven invents the electrocardiogram, the ECG.
See it at: Rijksmuseum Boerhaave →The first of three generations of the House of Orange at Leiden University.
See it at: Academy Building, RapenburgThe discoverer of vitamin C did research in Leiden in the early 1920s.
Enrico Fermi worked in Leiden on a fellowship in 1924.
The future queen studies law here until 1961. In 2005 the university awards her an honorary doctorate.
See it at: Academy Building, RapenburgRussian physicist Igor Tamm was a visiting researcher in Leiden in 1928.
Leiden student and doctoral candidate, and winner of the very first Nobel Prize in economics.
His brother, a Leiden student, lecturer and professor, wins the prize for his research into animal behaviour.
Tjalling Koopmans earned his doctorate in Leiden in 1936.
Nicolaas Bloembergen earned his doctorate in Leiden in 1948; his prize was for laser spectroscopy.
Niels Jerne studied in Leiden and won the prize for his work on the immune system.
The future king studies history here.
See it at: Academy Building, RapenburgOne day, four moments. How to get the most out of your visit.
Six places to complete your museum day.
The museum of science, with instruments from Leiden's Nobel laureates, Kamerlingh Onnes' cold lab and a reconstructed anatomy theatre.
The heart of the university on the Rapenburg. In the Zweetkamertje, doctoral candidates wait for the verdict and then sign the wall, next to generations before them.
The oldest botanical garden in the Netherlands, with the Clusius garden, glasshouses and centuries-old trees.
The 1860 observatory on the edge of the Hortus, successor to the rooftop observatory of 1633. Check the university website for open days.
Early work by Rembrandt, who was briefly a Leiden student, and the history of the city.
Often called the most beautiful canal in the Netherlands, with university buildings, the Hortus and old student houses.
Three day trips to science and art nearby.
Teylers Museum, the oldest museum in the Netherlands, full of fossils, instruments and drawings.
Route by public transport ↗The Mauritshuis and the royal collections.
Route by public transport ↗The Prinsenhof, where William of Orange died.
Route by public transport ↗Travel times are indicative. Live times on 9292.nl ↗.
Leiden is small enough to walk everywhere. The Hague, Delft and Haarlem are a short train ride away.