De Markt, South Holland Province, The Netherlands

4Samm020 5:00 PM Jun 9, 2009

Smell the fish...
This is really an old fashioned foodmarket, where the whole of Leiden roams around on Saturdays. It is not classy, like burough market in London, for it is not so much a tourist attraction, but the place where citizens go to shop. If you want the local experience: go around ten 'o clock, have a coffee at 'Van Engelen', opposite the 'Vroom & Dreesman' (V&D huge shopping centre, but not worth your time, really) and around eleven, take a walk around the market. It will be busy, and the sellers will be screaming your ears of. Have a 'vietnamese loempia' for a euro near the white bridge, buy some fruit further on, and continue your round. At the other side of the canal you can buy freshly prepared 'Haring' (the raw fish), or, if you do not dare to take on this challenge: watch the Dutchies stuff themselves with it. Take the haringstand on the corner, with the polish employees (it is usually the bussiest) This one is known as the best one among 'Leidenaren'. Something less adventurous can be bought some 20 mettres further: 'Kibbeling'. This is another snack a lot of people buy on saturdays: it is fried peaces of fish with sauce and -a bit like fishfingers- kids like it too, usually. When they hold up a plastic container with a spicemix, and start screaming something that resembles English at you, just say yes: they want to know if you want it with spices and do take it (it's paprikapowder and salt or something; not spicy at all). So, enjoy a real 'Leidse' day like this, it will take you about an hour to walk around. Not because it is such a huge market, but it is busy and people move around slowly. Don't forget to visit the little gem hidden somewhere behind te market in a narrow streat: Het Klaverblad. It is the oldest shop in Leiden, selling coffee and tea. A lot of people will know it, and if they don't: ask for a bar named Odessa, this is in the same street and also quite well known. Have fun!

4Robert O 5:00 PM Aug 16, 2017

Small, but great
On Wednesdays and Saturdays along Nieuwe Rijn canal where it has been for ages for a reason. Farmers used to transport their produce by boat to the center of Leiden. If you cycle through the Leiden hinterland you can still observe the ingenious system of waterways that used to compose Holland's 16th century transport system. It was hardly possible to go from A to B over land and certainly not with a load. You would get stuck in some marshy piece of land somewhere. At the time the center of Leiden was virtually one big marketplace with designated spaces for different goods. Some names of canals still are referring to it: boter markt, vis markt, aal markt. The whole area is worth visiting during all days of the week as there are many cozy cafés and restaurants with friendly well-behaved 'indigenous' people. One wonders why foreigners flock to Amsterdam. For a Dutch city experience Leiden is a much better alternative.