Hi I am a long time lurker, first post.
My OH has an interview for job in Leiden. I wondered if anybody lives there or has lived there and could tell me what its like?
He will be there on his own for a bit, and if it works out we (me and the kids) will want to move out and join him.

I lived in The Hague, and to be honest I didn’t like it much. That might be partly an attitude problem on my part, but I think it’s true that Holland is a pretty cold place for the outsider, diabolical weather. Once you get moved in life is quite easy but getting settled with the local authorities, phone line etc. is quite trying. Leiden itself is a pretty town, university, close to Amsterdam. Don’t know if that helps much …

My friend lived there for 4 years and we used to go and stay a lot, great little town, lots to do and see easy traveling.
Friend lived right in the centre looking out to the canals…

Busy student town

Do it !

Is it good for kids? My girls are 5 and 7.

yes loads to do as far as I remember

Stayed there for a few days when our tent got blown apart. Nice place, classic old University town, good shops, great pancake houses! A short drive to the seaside, kids will love you! There’s a water theme park about 20 minutes away too.
An hour by train from Amsterdam.

+1 for the sea being nearby

Yeah Noordwijk isn’t too far from Leiden. Quite nice there but couldn’t imagine living there. One of my mates is from Leiden but lives over here in Oz. I do like Holland and Dutch people I’ve always found to be super nice.

Wow thanks all of you. I think we will go on a visit. I expect there is not much riding around there?

I’ve a colleague who works in Leiden though not sure where she lives. Seemed like a nice place to live albeit not if you want a big city feel. There’s lots of riding if you like canal-side flat cyclepaths with crosswinds. not sure there’s anything interesting to ride

EDIT: and anyway, the only reason for not riding a Dutch sit-up-and-beg bike is that you’re riding one of those things with a huge box on the front full of children, shopping, and perhaps a dog

and anyway, the only reason for not riding a Dutch sit-up-and-beg bike is that you’re riding one of those things with a huge box on the front full of children, shopping, and perhaps a dog

I’m not sure about the dog but the rest of it could be me.

Wow thanks all of you. I think we will go on a visit. I expect there is not much riding around there?

There are a lot of people on bikes, but “riding” as in mountain biking = zilch.

I’m writing this from an hotel in AMS, with colleagues who moved from Scotland to Leiden & would never move back. It’s good for bringing up kids, small slow & safe, and there appears to be plenty of work around – there’s a bioscience park & shipyards near. It’s flat, watery and windy.

It looked nice enough when I cycled through it. I only remember the place because Leiden means suffer in German and it reminded me of this song:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94G38n0z0u4[/video]

I went out with a girl who was studying medicine there. Great place – very friendly and nice cycle to the coast and Scheveningen (they will get you to say this place over and over!) – which is where they have a famous ‘New Years Dive’.

Very student orientated, lots of bars, great bakeries and easy on the train to go everywhere in NL.

Lived in the Netherlands for 3 years in a small town called Vlaardingen just North of Rotterdam. I worked in Den Haag and we used to visit Leiden a lot as my wife had some work colleagues there. It’s a nice place – compact but still reasonably cosmpopolitan and easy to get pretty much anywhere else in Holland from there within an hour or so.

City / town life in Holland is fantastic.. loads of nice places to eat and drink, public transport and (utility) cycling facilities are fab, as are sports, leisure and cultural facilities in general. Most of the people are friendly, the schools are good and I believe there are quite a few international ones in Leiden and Den Haag.

We really enjoyed our time there but on the downside, it’s very densely populated with little in the way of “real” countryside around the main population centres – there is some nice parkland though and some more interesting terrain to the East and South East of the country and the islands in the North are worth a trip in the spring or summer. Beaches and dunes are quite nice in the summer but are very exposed to the wind.

On the downside, the weather can be even grimmer than here in the winter – be prepared for weeks of grey skies, icy wind and drizzle – the weather seems even more oppressive due to the flat landscape and it can get you down after a while if you’e not careful.

A warning – particularly as an outsider, the level of pointless bureaucracy and downright incompetence in any big organisation you have to deal with (banks, local authorities, tax etc) is almost beyond belief. Another surprise was that even in the bigger, more multicultural cities, the Dutch aren’t always as accepting of minorities as you might expect – Moroccans and Turkish folk in particular get a bad deal and quite a few acquaintances of ours – even well educated, seemingly sensible ones had no qualms about expressing some fairly overt racist views which didn’t really fit in with the tolerant image… it’s actually a far more divided society than you might imagine but I guess that’s true of most countries when you dig under the skin. We’re certainly far from perfect in those respects.

As I say we really enjoyed our time there and had some great experiences but it’s not somewhere we ever intended remaining long term.

Thanks everyone.

Nice place, small town feel. MTb course through the dunes at noordvijk, great for kites/kite surfing/ kite buggies. I was in noordvijk rather than Leiden. It’s windy, fat bike could be a laugh