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Category: The Netherlands

Rotterdam (Not Just Anywhere)

Rotterdam (Not Just Anywhere)

Sountrack for reading (and understanding the title of) this blog – Rotterdam (Or Anywhere) by the Beautiful South.

It had been years since I’d been to Rotterdam, so many that I can’t remember the last time I was there (other than changing trains on my way to Hook of Holland, but even that is 10 years ago). I tried to visit a few times, but it was almost like there was a curse: once I was stuck in a train on the way to Rotterdam for 5 hours, and then when we could finally move again the train went back to Amsterdam…

But curses are there to break, so when Chanita asked me if I wanted to spend a day in Rotterdam I said yes – and this time I reached my destination without any obstacles thrown in my way šŸ˜€ Chanita has lived in Rotterdam for more than 10 years and turned out to be the perfect tour guide: she really loves the city and she knows a lot about it!

Rotterdam is ever-changing. It’s not like other Dutch cities – it was nearly completely destroyed in 1940 during the German invasion. It was rebuilt in a very modern style, and I think it has made it very popular for architects to build there, as new projects keep popping up. Like the Market Hall (opened in 2014), which was one of the first places we stopped.

De Markthal in Rotterdam Looking up - love the view!

I love this building! The market inside is REALLY nice, the building is so impressive and the painting on the inside is just fantastic. You can actually live in the building, though I bet it’s not cheap šŸ˜‰

Lots of really yummy food and a view to another Rotterdam icon: the pencil Going down you can read about the history of Rotterdam on the side of the escalators Beautiful artwork called 'Hoorn des Overvloeds' - and those windows are from apartments!

After that we visited the library, an impressive building with lots of lights…

Inside the library I love the lights!

And then we went to the cube houses, some really modern houses shaped like cubes, which were built in the early eighties. I’d seen them before, and even visited one that’s open to the public. They’ve since turned some of them into a youth hostel! They don’t seem to be doing too well, there were lots of houses for sale (6 at the moment, click here if you’re curious to peek inside those that are for sale)

The famous cube houses in Rotterdam Old & new: the modern cube houses on the left, and the first high-rise building (built in 1898) in Europe on the right

The cube houses with the Pencil in the background The Veerhaven

We stopped for lunch and then continued to the Erasmus bridge. Near there, we stopped to look at the “fire line”, these small lights are placed all around the city centre and marks the perimeter of the burnt city centre after the bombing. You can often clearly see the line as well, with modern buildings on one side, and old ones on the other. Below you can see an example of the older buildings that survived – modern on the inside though! Rotterdam seems to be able to mix old & new in a beautiful way.

The outside/entrance of het Westelijk Handelsterrein Inside het Westelijk Handelsterrein with lots of restaurants

We crossed the Erasmus Bridge, nicknamed ‘the Swan’…

On the Erasmus bridge! Erasmus selfie with Chanita :)

Our next stop was Hotel New York, based in the former headquarters of the Holland America Lines – lots of hopeful emigrants used to leave for North America from here. It is now dwarfed by two huge skyscrapers…

Hotel New York Hotel New York is based in the former headquarters of the Holland Amerika Lijn / Holland America Lines

Panorama of the view in front of Hotel New York. Rotterdam is sometimes jokingly called “Manhattan on the Maas”, since it’s the only Dutch city that has some kind of skyline šŸ˜‰

Panorama view of 'Manhattan on the Maas', Rotterdam's nickname as it's the only Dutch city with some kind of skyline

My next destination is Canada, so I just had to take this photo šŸ™‚ and then it was time for apple pie & hot chocolate with ridiculous amounts of cream šŸ˜€

Lots of destinations were written along the quay - and this is my next destination so I had to get a photo! Time for a break - with way too much cream ;)

On the way back we passed the Maritime Museum with lots of cranes and a lighthouse in front of the museum.

A crane outside the Rotterdam Maritime Museum The Rotterdam Maritime Museum

A piece of artwork, and the ‘Koopgoot’ or ‘Shopping Gutter’ – a shopping street below street level that’s quite famous in the Netherlands.

Art 'De Koopgoot' aka 'Shopping Gutter' - a famous shopping area below street level in Rotterdam

Walking back to where Chanita lives, Rotterdam showed that it still has that classical Dutch city look in some areas šŸ™‚

Even though Rotterdam is full of modern architecture, there are still some areas looking more like the classical Dutch city...

What a fun day! Chanita was a fantastic guide, and I hope to come back for ‘part 2’ one day – we didn’t manage to see everything. And with all the museums Rotterdam has to offer I think it will take a long time to get bored of the city šŸ™‚

Hyacinths & Tulips

Hyacinths & Tulips

I spent a couple of days in the Netherlands in mid April – perfect time to see the flower fields in bloom. It was mostly hyacinths flowering at that time, the tulips come a bit later. I went for a long bike ride through the fields, and back along the coast/beach. Windwise, that was the wrong way around – the way back felt twice as long as I struggled against a strong headwind šŸ˜‰

Purple & Pink Purple hyacinths

A lost pink hyacinth And a lost tulip :)

A daffodil between pink hyacinths Inside a tulip

So many colours Blue

These tulips were SO red they were hurting my eyes! A tourist offered to take a photo of me :)

Flying Dutchman

Flying Dutchman

My youngest brother has become a flying Dutchman šŸ™‚ He got his Private Pilot License early this summer, and has been taking friends and families on flights across the Netherlands. I kept getting emails with fantastic photos, and was impatiently waiting for my turn to come šŸ™‚

So the day after I arrived in the Netherlands to celebrate Sinterklaas, my brother and I drove to Lelystad Airport – even though the weather forecast wasn’t looking very favourable. As he’s flying small planes without advanced instruments, he has to fly “visual” which means he can’t fly in the clouds and needs a certain distance from the clouds as well as a minimum horizontal visibility in order to fly. When we arrived at the airport, it was POURING with rain, and the wind was strong and gusty. We could forget about flying in conditions like that, so instead he showed me around his club, and we had a fantastic lunch at the airport restaurant.

Then suddenly it stopped raining, the wind decreased and bits of blue sky turned up. The restaurant emptied, and small planes popped out of all the hangars on the airport šŸ˜€ So we hurried back to the club as well, and got ready for a short flight…

My brother pulling the plane out of the hangar Ready to go!

Originally we were going to fly to Texel and Ameland, and make a daytrip out of it, but it was almost 14:00 now and we only had time for a short (30 minute) flight over Flevoland before people at the club were going home.

Here we’re flying over Harderwijk, where we could see the dolphins swim underwater in the Dolfinarium (Sea World), and the theme park Walibi.

Harderwijk, with the Dolfinarium (Sea World) in the foreground - we could see the dolphins swim underwater! Attraction Park Walibi with lots of roller coasters - pity it's closed for the winter

Flevoland is a “new” province in the Netherlands, the land was reclaimed from the sea and made into a province in 1986. That means it’s flat like a pancake, and the farm fields are relatively large and straight. And all the towns are new of course, but in the first photo you can see an older town that used to be on the shore of the Zuiderzee.

Elburg, with a moat around the city centre Modern (and identical...) houses in Dronten

We saw LOTS and LOTS of windmills, and they’re planning to build even more. After 30 minutes, it was time to land again. We landed with a 22 knots crosswind, which is quite tricky. You have to land with one wheel first, to avoid the wind getting underneath your plane and tipping it over when you land. I thought it would be a scary bumpy landing, but my brother did amazingly well and landed it very softly šŸ™‚

Lots of windmills Nice clouds :) Ready to land... you can see the landing strip in the distance

It was a fun flight, now I am looking forward to come in summer and do a longer flight over the Netherlands or perhaps even into Germany šŸ™‚