JEAN LUZAC'S HOUSE:

America's first ambassador, the future president John Adams, visited Leiden's publisher Jean Luzac in the 1780's here, where the French-language "Gazette de Leyde" was produced. That newspaper carried favorable news and editorials about the American Revolution, distributed throughout Europe. Luzac was killed in 1807, when a boat full of gunpowder exploded further along the canal, destroying about eight square blocks of houses and killing 155 people.

Turn left on the Herensteeg at the end of the block. At the corner is the Kamerlingh-Onnes laboratory, which was the center of Leiden University's pioneering physics research into temperatures near absolute zero. Notice the elaborate 16th-century tower further along the canal, which belongs to the