Hotel Café Het Wapen van Leiden

When the 31-year-old innkeeper Frederik Verkade puts the lodging “Het Wapen van Leiden” up for sale in 1810, it was referred to as an old and very renowned lodging house. The building still bears this name today. It was the “Leidse” Verkade family that (re)introduced the name “The coat of arms of Leiden”.The underlying story was that cloth merchants went to Appingedam to travel from there by ship to the Baltic countries and Russia. Both the story and the building, however, date from before 1810. In the 17th century, Leiden traders did establish trade relations with, among others, Russia.Due to a favorable combination of wind and water currents, Appingedam was a suitable port for trade across the Baltic Sea.