Massachusetts has even paid homage. The Pioneer Valley hill town of Leyden and Plymouth's Leyden Street, billed as ''the oldest street in America," were named after the Pilgrims' Dutch home. (Some Pilgrim descendants left Plymouth to settle in Leyden, Mass., in the 1730s.)
It's a pity, though, that the ''Let's Go City Guide to Amsterdam" doesn't even list Leiden among its 17 recommended day trips (though some Amsterdam guidebooks do). Nor do the several day trips sponsored by the Amsterdam Tourism & Convention Board include Leiden.
That is not good news for Leiden's tourism economy, but it's great for American tourists who don't want to be surrounded by other American tourists. One can walk about this compact city of 119,000 lined with canals and filled with museums, fashionable shops, and sidewalk cafes, and hear little, if any, English spoken.
Leiden has made much progress since the Pilgrims in providing information for tourists. A good part of that is due to the work of Jeremy Bangs, the American scholar and Leiden resident who served as chief curator at Plimoth Plantation in Plymouth from 1986-91, and was visiting curator at Plymouth's Pilgrim Hall Museum for a year after that. Bangs attended Leiden University, where his father was a professor and historian.
On Thanksgiving Day 1997, Bangs opened the tiny but fascinating Leiden American Pilgrim Museum in a 1370 building that he said is the city's oldest house. There, you can see Pilgrim-era maps, books, and domestic artifacts. Bangs will even let you hold some of them.
