Well, well behind with posting the activities we indulged in prior to the new year... each week we'll post a #fbf (flash back Friday) post to try and get on top.
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| Walking across the Erasmus Bridge after a couple of hours of beer and cider tasting at the Fenix Food Factory. |
15th and 16th of December 2016
Located in south Holland, and home to Europe's largest port. Rotterdam is the second largest city behind Amsterdam in the Netherland's. It is known for it's university - Erasmus University, it's riverside setting and lively culture. Mostly flattened during WWII, Rotterdam has seen a rise in tourism since popular travel websites like Rough Guides and Lonely Planet have mentioned Rotterdam as one of Europes top cities to visit - so this is why we are here!
We stayed at King Kong hostel, a really clean and modern hostel which was upstairs of a bar/cafe (great buffet breakfast and packed lunch - not included but worth the $). It wasn't overly busy which was good, so we had a double bunked room to ourselves for the first night of our stay.
The Hostel ran a free walking tour, which was one of the worst tours we've been on with regard to history and general fact unfortunately, but it made for a good morning wandering around the walkable city centre and some background information and tips on places to check out. We only had a couple of nights to spend here so our plan was really to see as much as we could in one day.
Top thing we saw:
Markthal - a residential, and office building with a market hall underneath.
Rotterdam Centraal Station - The central train station receives over 100,000 passengers a day. Pretty impressive including the old station lettering on the front which gives the building a sweet retro look.
Cube House - a set of innovative houses built in 1977.
Hotel New York.
Fenix Food Factory - a food hub and farmers market within an old warehouse. Plenty of local beer and cheese to wrap your chops around.
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| The train station 'pointing' to the city centre. |
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| 38 cube houses built in 1977 - you can waltz right on through the little cube neighbourhood which is pretty cool, each cube has 4 floors and the total area of the apartments are 100m2, but around 25% of that space is unusable because of the angled ceilings. |
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| A rough roof top garden in the centre of the city shown to us on the walking tour... |
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| Santa Claus holding......a Christmas tree. This fella is on display all year round because his such a beauty, not just out at Christmas time. Some suggest it is not a Christmas Tree at all. |
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| These lights are scattered around the city within the footpaths indicating where a building was completely destroyed by Nazi bombing WWII. |
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| Market Hall - featuring 230 residential appartments, an underground 4 story parking garage the hall is a pretty impressive building. It has plenty of delicious food stalls inside the open centre of the building. |
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| A cheeky water taxi from the centre of Rotterdam across to Hotel America/Fenix food factory. 13AUD |
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| Nice to have a bit of sun in the eyes. |
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| Hotel New York - formally the head office of Holland America Lines, founded in 1873 as a Dutch-America steamship company which sailed from Rotterdam to New York!!! welcomed early tourism... What would have been a significant building many-a life time ago is now overshadowed by some massive apartment/office buildings. |
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| Enjoying the Fenix Factory. |
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| Not the Christmas vibes other places had, and as you can see it was pretty quiet around the streets. |
Thumbs up for Rotterdam. Well worth the short visit. We only found good food, coffee, beer, and friendly people. Other then a cray 70AUD train fare from Antwerp, it was all good! Compared to some German towns it was refreshingly modern and clean in a good way with plenty of culture!
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