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Roots Earth in Leiden: audio stories about 40 places

Roots Earth has audio stories about 40 places in Leiden, Netherlands, in Europe. The Leiden stories are in all seven Roots Earth languages: English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian. The app needs no account: open Leiden, pick a place on the city's map of places and play. Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection. The stories are written by local people.

The 40 places are listed below in the order the app shows them, and again further down with their coordinates. The lists were taken from the Roots Earth catalogue on 15 September 2026.

Published 16 September 2026. Markdown: leiden.md

The 40 places in Leiden with audio stories

In the order the app shows them.

  1. Burcht van Leiden
  2. Pieterskerk (St Peter's Church)
  3. National Museum of Antiquities
  4. De Valk Windmill Museum
  5. Hooglandse Kerk
  6. Hortus Botanicus Leiden
  7. Academy Building, Leiden University
  8. Naturalis Biodiversity Center
  9. Museum De Lakenhal
  10. Wereldmuseum Leiden (Museum of Ethnology)
  11. Museum Boerhaave
  12. Rapenburg Canal
  13. Pilgrim Museum Leiden
  14. Japan Museum SieboldHuis
  15. Leiden Weigh House
  16. Marekerk
  17. Zijlpoort (Zijl Gate)
  18. Vrouwekerk Ruins
  19. Leiden Anatomical Theatre
  20. Wall Poems of Leiden
  21. Bibliotheca Thysiana
  22. Leiden University Library
  23. Kamerlingh Onnes Building
  24. Leiden Observatory
  25. CORPUS Museum
  26. Gemeenlandshuis of Rijnland
  27. Old Rhine Quays (Oude Rijn)
  28. Leidse Hout Park
  29. Park Matilo
  30. Leiden Centraal Station
  31. Leiden University Medical Center
  32. Leiden Bio Science Park
  33. Student Society Minerva
  34. African Studies Centre Leiden
  35. Stedelijk Gymnasium Leiden
  36. Vijf Meihal
  37. Leiden Lammenschans Station
  38. De Vink Station
  39. Zijl River
  40. Kagerplassen (Kaag Lakes)

Is there an audio guide for Burcht van Leiden?

Yes. Burcht van Leiden has its audio stories in the Roots Earth app: a short introduction and a deeper story, in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian.

It is place 1 of the 40 Leiden places in the app, at 52.15889, 4.49222. Every one of the other 39 places in the list above has the same two stories.

Roots Earth is not a guided tour: you choose the place on the city's map of places and play its story yourself.

How to use Roots Earth in Leiden

Open Roots Earth and choose Leiden. The city has its own map of places with all 40 of them on it. Tap the place you are standing in front of, or any other, and play its short introduction or its deeper story. You decide what to listen to and in which order.

You can listen in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian, and there is no account. Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection.

In full

All 40 places in Leiden, in the app's order, with their coordinates.

All 40 places in Leiden, with coordinates

Every place below has a short introduction and a deeper story in the Roots Earth app, in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian. The names, the coordinates (latitude, longitude) and the one line descriptions are the app's own catalogue values of 15 September 2026; a place without a line here has none that this page can print.

1. Burcht van Leiden

Coordinates
52.15889, 4.49222
In one line
A medieval shell keep crowning an artificial mound at the meeting of two Rhine branches. Among the oldest castles in the Netherlands, it has belonged to the city since 1651 and now serves as a public park with sweeping rooftop views.

2. Pieterskerk (St Peter's Church)

Coordinates
52.1575, 4.48778
In one line
Leiden's towerless late-Gothic church, begun in 1390 and built over roughly 180 years. Its great tower collapsed in 1512 and was never rebuilt. Burials here include painter Jan Steen and Pilgrim pastor John Robinson.

3. National Museum of Antiquities

Coordinates
52.15833, 4.48583
In one line
The Netherlands' national archaeology museum, founded in 1818 and opened to the public in 1838. Its collections span Egypt, the ancient Near East and the classical world, and an authentic Egyptian temple stands in the entrance hall.

4. De Valk Windmill Museum

Coordinates
52.1645, 4.48643
In one line
A towering brick grain mill of 1743, the last survivor of a row that once ringed Leiden's ramparts. It worked into the twentieth century and is now a museum where visitors climb past machinery and the miller's living quarters to a rooftop view.

5. Hooglandse Kerk

Coordinates
52.15806, 4.49417
In one line
A soaring late-Gothic church dedicated to Saint Pancras, begun in 1377 and never finished. Its luminous interior holds the longest Gothic transept in the Netherlands, while a low nave reveals the great hall that was planned but never built.

6. Hortus Botanicus Leiden

Coordinates
52.15709, 4.48452
In one line
The oldest botanical garden in the Netherlands, laid out in 1594 for Leiden University. Under its first prefect, Carolus Clusius, it helped launch the Dutch love of tulips, and it still cultivates plants gathered from across the world.

7. Academy Building, Leiden University

Coordinates
52.1569, 4.4853
In one line
The ceremonial heart of Leiden University, the oldest in the Netherlands, founded in 1575 to honour the city's resistance to a Spanish siege. Housed in a former convent church on the Rapenburg, it still hosts graduations and doctoral defences.

8. Naturalis Biodiversity Center

Coordinates
52.16472, 4.47333
In one line
One of the world's largest natural history collections, holding around 42 million specimens. Founded in 1820, it reopened in 2019 in a sculptural new complex, where dinosaurs, fossils and a famed Tyrannosaurus rex draw hundreds of thousands of visitors.

9. Museum De Lakenhal

Coordinates
52.16306, 4.4875
In one line
Leiden's municipal art museum, housed in the former cloth hall built in 1640 and 1641 by city architect Arent van 's-Gravesande. Its collection ranges from a Lucas van Leyden altarpiece and early Rembrandt to the modern De Stijl movement.

10. Wereldmuseum Leiden (Museum of Ethnology)

Coordinates
52.16306, 4.4825
In one line
One of the world's oldest ethnographic museums, founded in 1837 around Philipp Franz von Siebold's Japanese collection. Long known as the National Museum of Ethnology, it gathers objects from across Africa, Asia, the Americas and Oceania in a former academic hospital.

11. Museum Boerhaave

Coordinates
52.16139, 4.48889
In one line
The Dutch national museum of the history of science and medicine, founded in 1928 and named for physician Herman Boerhaave. Set in a former convent and plague hospital, it displays early microscopes, the Fahrenheit thermometer and a reconstructed anatomical theatre.

12. Rapenburg Canal

Coordinates
52.15722, 4.48583
In one line
Leiden's grandest canal, lined with patrician mansions and university institutions. Long the city's most elegant address, it gathers the Academy Building, the botanical garden and the National Museum of Antiquities along a single tree-lined waterway in the historic centre.

13. Pilgrim Museum Leiden

Coordinates
52.15744, 4.48829
In one line
A small museum at Kloksteeg 16a beside Pieterskerk, devoted to the English Separatists who lived in Leiden from 1609 before sailing on the Mayflower. Furnished in Pilgrim-era style, it displays period maps, engravings and objects of daily life.

14. Japan Museum SieboldHuis

Coordinates
52.15969, 4.48463
In one line
A Japan museum in an eighteenth-century canal house on the Rapenburg, displaying objects gathered by Philipp Franz von Siebold during his years at Dejima from 1823. Opened to the public in 2005, it shows Japanese art, maps, plants and everyday things.

15. Leiden Weigh House

Coordinates
52.1594, 4.4904
In one line
A Dutch Golden Age weighing hall designed by Pieter Post and opened in 1659, where Leiden merchants once weighed and traded cheese, cloth and grain. It served the city until 1972 and now houses a restaurant.

16. Marekerk

Coordinates
52.1614, 4.4908
In one line
A domed church begun in 1639 to a centralized octagonal plan by Arent van 's-Gravesande, among the first in the Netherlands built specifically for Protestant worship. Its pulpit-focused interior expressed a new, reformed idea of the sacred.

17. Zijlpoort (Zijl Gate)

Coordinates
52.16167, 4.50417
In one line
A classical city gate built in 1667 by Willem van der Helm on Leiden's eastern edge, one of Leiden's two surviving city gates, alongside the Morspoort. Its twin towers once guarded the road to the Zijl waterway.

18. Vrouwekerk Ruins

Coordinates
52.16083, 4.48972
In one line
The ruins of a Gothic church begun around 1300 and demolished by 1840. As a Walloon Protestant church it hosted baptisms and marriages of the Leiden Pilgrims, whose contours are now marked on the open square.

19. Leiden Anatomical Theatre

Coordinates
52.1567, 4.4843
In one line
One of Europe's earliest anatomical theatres, opened in 1594 under Pieter Pauw at Leiden University. Its tiered amphitheatre staged public dissections in winter and displayed skeletons and curiosities in summer, drawing crowds for over two centuries.

20. Wall Poems of Leiden

Coordinates
52.157, 4.4889
In one line
An open-air anthology of more than 110 poems painted on Leiden's walls between 1992 and 2005. Created by the Tegen-Beeld foundation, it spans many languages and poets, from Marina Tsvetaeva to Federico García Lorca.

21. Bibliotheca Thysiana

Coordinates
52.15917, 4.48444
In one line
A Dutch Classical library built in 1655 by Arent van 's-Gravesande from the bequest of scholar Johannes Thysius. It is the only surviving seventeenth-century building in the Netherlands purpose-built as a public library, still holding its original collection.

22. Leiden University Library

Coordinates
52.1575, 4.48111
In one line
Founded on 31 October 1587, the library of the Netherlands' oldest university holds more than five million volumes and treasures like the ninth-century Leiden Aratea. Its special collections, manuscripts, and Asian holdings rank among Europe's richest research archives.

23. Kamerlingh Onnes Building

Coordinates
52.15611, 4.48972
In one line
A nineteenth-century laboratory on the Steenschuur, completed in 1859, where physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes first liquefied helium in 1908 and discovered superconductivity in 1911. Once the coldest place on Earth, it now houses Leiden Law School.

24. Leiden Observatory

Coordinates
52.16775, 4.46084
In one line
Established in 1633, Leiden Observatory is the oldest operating university observatory in the world. Its domed nineteenth-century building beside the botanical garden, where Jan Oort mapped the galaxy, now serves as a visitor center and museum.

25. CORPUS Museum

Coordinates
52.16972, 4.45194
In one line
Opened in 2008 in Oegstgeest near Leiden, CORPUS is the world's first museum to lead visitors on a journey through the human body. Its landmark building takes the form of a giant seated figure some thirty-five meters tall.

26. Gemeenlandshuis of Rijnland

Coordinates
52.1583, 4.489
In one line
A historic house on the Breestraat that since 1578 has served the Hoogheemraadschap van Rijnland, one of the oldest water authorities in the Netherlands. From here, dikes, sluices, and polders were governed for centuries.

27. Old Rhine Quays (Oude Rijn)

Coordinates
52.1595, 4.4944
In one line
The quiet quays of the Oude Rijn, an old branch of the Rhine, run through the heart of Leiden. Once a Roman frontier and a Golden Age trade route, the waterway now lines streets where locals walk, moor boats, and linger by the water.

28. Leidse Hout Park

Coordinates
52.17444, 4.48111
In one line
Leiden's beloved wooded park, opened in 1931 as work relief during the Great Depression. With its ponds, deer park, tea house, music pavilion, and open-air theatre, it remains a favourite green retreat for families and students.

29. Park Matilo

Coordinates
52.1497, 4.5184
In one line
A green neighbourhood park in Leiden's Roomburg district built over Matilo, the Roman fort that once guarded the frontier where Corbulo's canal met the Rhine. Its raised earthworks trace the buried outline of the ancient camp.

30. Leiden Centraal Station

Coordinates
52.16639, 4.48222
In one line
Leiden's main railway station, first opened in 1842 and rebuilt four times since. Its white lattice hall from 1996 funnels tens of thousands of daily travellers between Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Schiphol, and serves the university, hospital and science park.

31. Leiden University Medical Center

Coordinates
52.16583, 4.4775
In one line
The university hospital and medical faculty of Leiden University, formed in 1996 by merging the academic hospital with the medical school. Standing behind the central station, it combines patient care, teaching and research as one of the Netherlands' leading medical centres.

32. Leiden Bio Science Park

Coordinates
52.166, 4.458
In one line
The largest life sciences cluster in the Netherlands, founded in 1984 west of the central station. Around two hundred organisations and some nineteen thousand workers occupy its laboratories, linking Leiden University, the medical centre and global biotech firms on one campus.

33. Student Society Minerva

Coordinates
52.1581, 4.4887
In one line
Leiden's largest and most storied student society, with roots in 1814 and its clubhouse on the Breestraat. Long an emblem of student tradition and influence, it gathers thousands of members around old rituals, song and a culture both celebrated and contested.

34. African Studies Centre Leiden

Coordinates
52.1567, 4.4817
In one line
A research institute devoted to the study of Africa, founded in 1947 and part of Leiden University since 2016. Its library, one of Europe's richest on the continent, holds around one hundred thousand books alongside journals, films and archives.

35. Stedelijk Gymnasium Leiden

Coordinates
52.15308, 4.50594
In one line
One of the oldest schools in the Netherlands, with roots traced to around 1323 and a Latin-school past. Now the country's largest gymnasium, it has taught classical languages for centuries and counts Rembrandt and Herman Boerhaave among its former pupils.

36. Vijf Meihal

Coordinates
52.14919, 4.47639
In one line
A 1968 municipal sports hall in Leiden, long the noisy home of the city's basketball teams. Nicknamed The Barn, it packed in thousands of fans before its demolition began in 2025, after the club moved in 2023 to a new arena.

37. Leiden Lammenschans Station

Coordinates
52.14722, 4.49167
In one line
Leiden's smaller railway station, opened in 1961 on the line toward Utrecht. Designed by Koen van der Gaast, it carries the name of a Spanish siege fort from the 1570s and serves the city's southeastern edge.

38. De Vink Station

Coordinates
52.14583, 4.45778
In one line
A small commuter station between Leiden and Voorschoten, opened in 1906, closed in 1928, and revived in 1985. It is the only Dutch railway station whose name does not include the city it sits in.

39. Zijl River

Coordinates
52.1685, 4.5085
In one line
A short river linking Leiden's Old Rhine to the Kaag Lakes, dug out around 1200 to drain the land. Just over four and a half kilometres long, it is now a favourite route for rowers and pleasure boats.

40. Kagerplassen (Kaag Lakes)

Coordinates
52.20528, 4.53833
In one line
A web of fenland lakes northeast of Leiden, formed by centuries of peat digging. Dotted with islands and old sailing villages like De Kaag and Warmond, it is one of South Holland's most beloved sailing waters.

Roots Earth in short

Roots Earth has audio stories about 5,665 places in 130 cities, 25 countries and 6 regions, written by local people.

  • No account
  • Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection
  • Audio stories in English and German in every city, and in Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian in 126 of the 130 cities

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