Our flight across the North Sea to Amsterdam Schiphol Airport from Luton was just a 50 minute hop with easyjet departing at 20.10. We were not planning to visit the city itself on this weekend break, so instead caught a train to Leiden from Schiphol Airport.

The journey by train to Leiden was a short 15 minute affair and we were on the way less than half an hour after touching down at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. It was all very efficient and as our hotel in Leiden was opposite the station we were in the room before 23.00 local time.

On the Saturday morning we headed across to the station, had breakfast at Starbucks and caught the 09.17 train to Amsterdam Zuid station, made a 4 minute cross platform interchange and then travelled onward to Apeldoorn arriving at 10.45.

The reason for visiting Apeldoorn was to 'regain' the city for Heather's list . . . she does like a list . . . as I had visited 15 or so years ago when travelling by car across to Poland. I will be honest nothing seemed too familiar so it was nice to be able to explore the city with fresh eyes even though the weather was poor. There is nothing stunning about the place, it is perfectly pleasant, typically dutch, has all the shops that you might need, the market was in full swing and we also found a nice cafe/restaurant for lunch (and to escape the rain).

In the afternoon we headed across to Gouda (which seemed to be pronounced Hooda), which really was a delightful place to visit. The buildings here were much older than Apeldoorn and again a market was still in operation in the main square. It would be good to go back without the market to appreciate this all the more. Oh, and we did try the cheese as you would expect!

As darkness was falling we headed back to Leiden and took the chance to have a bit of a wander before dinner. We were a bit thwarted by rain so huddled into a canalside bar before it was time to visit Oudt Leyden, a typical dutch pancake house. The pancakes were massive and the range was huge but we both settled for savoury pancakes (a bacon and mushroom for me, and a ham, cheese and pineapple for Heather) for the main course. They were gut filling to say the very least but both benefited from the addition of sweet sugar syrup. We came away a little confused as to whether we had really had a two course meal on one plate but needless to say we needed to walk it off.

Our flight on Sunday was not until 17.50 from Amsterdam Schiphol, so we had most of the day spare to see Leiden in the daylight. It turned out to be a lovely place to visit and far from the maddening crowds of Amsterdam. Having had a wander around the canals and visited a couple of the city gates and windmills we called in at the botanic gardens. February is never the best time to visit a botanical garden complex, but it was respite from the cold and drizzle and the indoor tropical greenhouses were lovely and warm. Wandering the backstreets and canals of Leiden was lovely and it certainly would be a place that I would recommend using as a base rather than Amsterdam - it is easy to reach Amsterdam if you wish (less than 30 minutes on a train) but not having the associated hustle and bustle was a great advantage.

After a lesiurely lunch the sun had come out so we had enough time to take a few extra photographs before heading back to the hotel to collect our bags and then to the airport. Our return flight, again with easyJet, had us back on the ground at Luton Airport at 17.55. We were swiftly through customs/passports,onto the rail shuttle bus to Luton Airport Parkway station and on the 18.32 train heading back north. Phew!