Leiden Secret Stories
Cover of Leiden Secret Stories: The Walking Companion — a Leiden canal at dusk

Leiden Secret Stories

The people history forgot to make famous, and the streets that still remember them.

31 stops · one loop · four centuries

Get the book Tours & city game

The Walking Companion

Every city keeps two histories. One is printed on postcards. The other is written in brass stones you step over, in plaques ten centimetres too high to notice, in alleys named after people nobody remembers. This self-guided walking book is about the second history — built to be walked through Leiden, page by page, in the order the streets themselves suggest.

Ebook

Read it on any device

All 31 stops with maps and photos. Carry the whole walk on your phone or e-reader.

Ebook — €2.99
Also on bol.com, Kindle, Apple Books, Kobo & more
Paperback

Made for a coat pocket

The printed companion: black-and-white maps, room for notes, and nothing that runs out of battery.

Paperback — €14.99
Ships from Amazon.nl

Walk it your way

Looking for things to do in Leiden beyond the postcards? The same hidden history, four ways: read it, walk it with a guide, play it as a city game, or — soon — listen to it.

Guided walking tour

With a live guide

Walk the secret stories with a guide who brings four centuries of forgotten Leidenaren to life. Small groups, bookable online.

Book on GetYourGuide
City game

The Keeper of Leiden’s Keys

The city as a puzzle: follow clues through the old centre and unlock Leiden’s secrets as a self-guided quest on your phone.

Play on Questo
Audio tour

The city speaks

A GPS-guided audio walk: the stories play automatically as you reach each stop. Walk at your own pace, headphones in.

Coming soon — in review

Three of the thirty-one

The Weddesteeg in Leiden, birthplace of Rembrandt
Stop 1

The Miller’s Ninth Child

What are the odds that the ninth child of a Leiden malt miller becomes the most famous painter who ever lived? Rembrandt was born here in 1606, within earshot of his father’s mill…

The Gravensteen, Leiden's old prison beside the Pieterskerk
Stop 9

The Prison on the Church Square

The white building beside the Pieterskerk looks almost cheerful. It was the Gravensteen — trials, confinement and public punishment, where justice, faith and death shared one address…

A narrow old alley in Leiden's former working-class district
Stop 21

Good Mie

She nursed sick neighbours, minded children, sat with the dying. She was also quietly insuring their lives — and then poisoning them with arsenic…

One loop through four centuries

Start anywhere on the loop, walk at your own pace, stop for coffee, pick up where you left off. An afternoon — or a weekend, if you linger.

Map of the complete Leiden Secret Stories walking route with all 31 stops marked
The full route: 31 stops through Leiden’s historic centre.

Made to be walked

A map for every stop

Each stop comes with its own map segment, so you always know where you are and what’s next.

Checked against the record

Historical details verified against published sources. Where a story is legend rather than record, the text says so.

No schedule, no group

The book, the game and the audio tour all work whenever you do. Rain check included.