I am the Burcht, the oldest hill in Leiden, and tonight Kaasman is sitting on my wall with all the city's cheese. You climb up from the courtyard with a loaf of white bread and a herring. That is what Leiden hands out every 3 October, for the night in 1574 when the siege was broken. Six ramps, ladders between them, and the cheese rolling down at you. Jump it and keep climbing. At the top, one of the thirty-eight places in this city is waiting. It tells you its story and goes into your collection. Twelve climbs make a night. The cheese learns as you go: from the fifth climb it takes the ladders, from the seventh it hops, and from the ninth a wheel that falls in the water climbs back out on two legs.