It seems to us that nothing is far from anywhere else in this country. When we drove from the Tulip Inn to our Airbnb place at Kandelaar, it took us less than 90 minutes, and that included a visit to the supermarket! We’re heading to Bruges tomorrow for a few days, and Google maps tells us that it will take 2 1/2 hours if we take the roads without the tolls on them.
We went back into Rotterdam on Sunday, so that we could have a walk around the centre of town, find some lunch and have a look at some of the interesting buildings that this city is famous for. We parked in the Markthal carpark again and headed to the shopping mall nearby. Fine day, but cold, and this time we’d brought our gloves and hats, so it was quite nice to walk in the 7C weather. It was the final day of the Rotterdam International Film Festival and we wandered into the Imax theatre, but they were just showing non-Imax films for the festival, so we kept on walking … to the beautiful modern Central Station, then to Witte de Withstraat, a street full of restaurants, nightclubs and a ‘coffeeshop’ or two or three. Then back to the Markthal, with a few stops to look at the 2-level bike parking near the metro station, and the Cube House and the outside of the Markthal, and a visit to one of the many bakeries inside for afternoon tea. This article has some great photos of the Markthal.
We drove to the Hook of Holland yesterday to have a look at the Maeslantkering, the storm surge barrier on the imaginary dividing line between the Nieuwe Waterweg waterway located at Hoek van Holland and the river Scheur, and one of the largest moveable objects in the world. Then to the coast to look at the beach and the North Sea. Not many people around on a chilly February day, but if the size of the carpark is anything to go by, it’s a popular place in summer.
And then on to Gouda, which is a bit north-east of where we’re staying. Greg did a very impressive parallel park along one of the canals, and we walked to the town centre to find … cheese! Of course. We tried a lot of different cheeses in one cheese shop and bought some smoked gouda and some farmers cheese with holes.
Central Station Rotterdam
Light-ship Rotterdam Harbour
Two storey bike racks at Rotterdam Metro Train Station
Cube Houses Rotterdam
Outside Rotterdam Markthal
Drying our washing in the AirBnB barn
Boat repair yard on the Canal
Driving to Hook of Holland we saw dozens and dozens of large greenhouses covering many acres
Maeslantkering, the storm surge barrier
Gouda Town Hall
Gouda Square
careful parallel parking in Gouda
I have greenhouse envy!
Love the architecture and esp love that RED ship!!
I bet you are sad you can’t bring lots of beautiful cheese back home!!
Lisa, those greenhouses are amazing, and there are so many! We kept on stopping to look at them. The one in the pic is huge, but … erm …. basic. A lot of the others have lights, heating and look like they are 2 storeys tall, but even though we stopped and walked right up to one we couldn’t work out what was growing in it – 2 thicknesses of opaque glass were between us and the plants.
I’m a cheesemaker, but tend to stick with soft, semi-soft and vegan cheeses. I’m keen to have a go at some gouda when we get home, though. But yes, it would be great to be able to bring some of the real stuff home.
How do you get your bike up to the 2nd storey of the bike rack?
Wish you had taken a video of Greg’s amazing parking next to the canal (scary I would have thought…..)
Hi Hazel!
The bike racks roll down to about a 60 degree angle, so the bike still has to be lifted onto it, but thankfully not as high as right up to the second tier. Greg seems to have another brain that just deals with driving a left-hand drive car.
Right now, he’s doing lots of research into driving ‘on the wrong side of the road’ because he’s bought an old Landcruiser ute and plans on doing it up, then we’ll ship it to Africa and do some more travelling. The ute is RH drive, which is fine for Southern Africa, but at some point north it all changes to LH drive, and driving a RH drive car has its limitations … visibility, turns, overtaking
Ugh to 42C in Victor today. It’s probably about 5 here, raining and we have the fire on. xxx
PS It is 42 degrees in Victor today……
Now the Light Ship was it just to visit it looks in good nic in my young days their was quite a number used in the North Sea particularly around the Dogger Bank which was a grave yard for wrecked ships I think they may have been repaired at the ship yard in Fays home town of Brightlingsea .the boy is not a bad driver I agree.