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Rotterdam Attractions
Many of Rotterdam's top sights are easily explored on foot. But consider incorporating a boatride into your sightseeing. Your starting point will be the city's Europoort -- the world's largest port -- a complex of piers, warehouses, and refineries stretching for 30 miles, an awe-inspiring sight from a boat after dark. The 1 ¼-hour harbor tour illuminates Rotterdam's vital role in world trade.
Rotterdam's modern urban planning has resulted in an unusually effective use of city-center space. Particularly attractive are the shingle paths and lazy lawns in the landscaped Museumpark, which serves as a central focus for two of the museums mentioned here. Between visits you can stretch your legs or sit down and have a picnic.
Modern Architecture
Rotterdam has some spectacular modern architecture. Just outside Centraal Station you encounter the office of the Nationale Nederlanden insurance corporation, the city's highest skyscraper at 152m (495 ft.). Down Coolsingel is the bottle-green World Trade Center; and east of this, on Overblaak, is a geometric chaos of quirky, cube-shaped apartments balancing atop tall concrete stalks. One of them, the Kijk-Kubus, Overblaak 70 (tel. 010/414-2285; www.kubuswoning.nl; Metro: Blaak), is open for visits March to December, daily from 11am to 5pm; January to February, Friday to Sunday from 11am to 5pm. Admission is 2€ ($2.50) for adults, 1.50€ ($1.90) for seniors and children ages 4 to 12, and free for children under 4.
Two prominent bridges span the Nieuwe Maas River, the dark red Nieuwe Willemsbrug, and a single-span suspension bridge called the Erasmusbrug and nicknamed "The Swan" (or, if you're not quite as charmed by its looks, "The Dishwashing Brush").
To see a splendid surviving corner of Old Rotterdam, take the Metro to Delfshaven which, many years ago, was Delft's harbor. Of special interest to Americans is the old Pilgrim Fathers Church, on Voorhaven, in which the Pilgrims said their last prayers before setting off for the New World aboard the Speedwell. The Speedwell didn't prove to be very seaworthy, though, so after crossing the English Channel, the Pilgrims boarded another ship in Southampton -- the Mayflower. The Pilgrims are remembered in special services every Thanksgiving Day.
Grand Harbor
A dredged deepwater channel connects Rotterdam with the North Sea and forms a 32km-long (20-mile) harbor known as Europoort ("poort" is pronounced like "port" in English). This handles more ships and more cargo every year than any other port in the world -- 20,000 ships and 310 million metric tons of cargo. Holland owes a fair piece of its prosperity to these statistics, but the port has a dark side, too: Rotterdam is a center for big-time international drug-dealers and gunrunners.
You may think visiting a harbor is boring business on a vacation, but Rotterdam's is one of the most memorable sights in Holland and makes any other harbor you've ever seen look like a Fisher-Price toy. Container ships, bulk carriers, tankers, sleek greyhounds of the sea, and careworn tramps are waited on by a vast retinue of machines and people. Trucks, trains, and barges, each carrying its little piece of the action, hurry into and out of the hub. You feel dwarfed by the hulking oil tankers and container ships that glide like giant whales into their berths along the miles of docks.
Windmills of Kinderdijk
The sight of windmill sails spinning in the breeze stirs the soul of a true Hollander. Kinderdijk, a tiny community between Rotterdam and Dordrecht, on the south bank of the Lek River, has 19 water-pumping windmills; that means 76 mill sails, each with a 14-yard span, all revolving on a summer day. It's a spectacular sight, and one important enough for Kinderdijk to have been placed on UNESCO's World Heritage list.
By regulating the level of water, Kinderdijk's windmills guarded the fertile polders (reclaimed land) of the Alblasserwaard, which were constantly at risk of returning to the water. The Windmill Exposition Center at Kinderdijk treats its subjects as more than just pretty faces and gives a detailed explanation of windmills' technical characteristics and the part they played in the intricate system of water control. It also looks at the people and the culture that developed on the polders.
The mills are in operation on Saturday afternoons in July and August from 2:30 to 5:30pm; the visitors' mill is open April to October, Monday to Saturday from 9:30am to 5:30pm. To get here from Rotterdam, take the train from Centraal station to Lombardijen station; bus no. 154 goes from there to Kinderdijk. If you're driving, take N210 east to Krimpen aan de Lek, from where a ferry crosses over to Kinderdijk.
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