Experiencing Hotel Valk Exclusief in Leiden

We recently spent a few days in Leiden and stayed in hotel Valk Exclusief Haagse Schouw. The hotel is located a few kilometres outside the city center. You can walk if you like but there is also a bus stop just opposite the hotel that takes you to the train station in the center in about 10 minutes or so. We used both options on different days. Although the distance to walk is not too far, the first part towards the center is along a big road and not so nice from the scenic point of view. The bus ride was smooth and you can pay contactless with your phone or card but the procedure is not very efficient as you have to scan on entering and also on leaving the bus so that the system knows how much to charge. The scan upon exiting is a bit of a hassle if it is busy as the bus has to wait until every person leaving has scanned out and then stepped out of the bus. The principle is actually fairly similar to when you use a metro but there the scanning stations are not on the train so it doesn’t hold up the train if many people are scanning through an exit gate. The hotel is located next to the Rhine. In the summer when the weather is nice you can have breakfast, lunch and dinner on the terrace next to the river. Many small motorised and rowing boats pass by, some of them very beautiful so there is something to look at on the water as well. The hotel has well equipped modern rooms and especially the breakfast buffet is a treat. If you cannot find what you like here you are extremely picky. We had breakfast and dinner at the hotel and the dinner was a 3 course menu with several options for starter, main dish and desert. We stayed 3 nights so that was the perfect duration to explore all the choices. If you don’t find what you want between the choices you can also explore the a la carte options. The dinners were nice and personally I didn’t have a problem picking something to my liking from the 3 options on the nights we stayed here. For a longer stay I would probably also branch out to a la carte or maybe try one of the many restaurants in the city center nearby. We stayed at this hotel once or twice before and I would certainly come back on a next visit to Leiden.