rotterdam: old town and modern city

Everything was perfect there: great modern buildings and bridges, old charming neighbourhoods, a theatre festival, a great museum...

and also: a fantastic bicycle ride to the windmills - and discovering Delft,a little charming town nearby.

Quick Tips:

Plan to go during the weekend. There's just so much going on in town that it's hard to decide. The port can be visited on a guided tour - I've even heard that people find it interesting... I would save it for a weekday.

Best Way To Get Around:

Cycle, cycle, cycle... you can rent bicycles in lots of places. Walk where you can, otherwise... most places are not too far from each other. There's also a subway if you don't feel very energetic.

The hotel is to be considered a budget hotel. It''s a correct hotel for its price: it''s clean, very central at the back of the train station in a very quiet alley overlooking a canal, and the owners are nice and helpful.

The room was good - not big but not tiny either - and it had a television, alarm clock and hairdryer. It''s not a fancy place - then again I was not looking for one - but it was very convenient and friendly.

Traditional food - if you ask around - doesn't officially exist. This means that it's really hard to find a place that serves it. One exception is the Restaurant Hiernaast: their food is a mix of traditional fare with an innovative touch. Particularly delicious were the desserts - I'm still dreaming of a heavenly Poffertjes, small pancakes topped with sugar, fresh strawberries and plenty of whipped-cream.

The restaurant is located in an old wooden building in Delfshaven: you can eat outside in the little beergarden, or inside in a dark candle-lit room overlooking the old lock and canal. We chose to stay inside and found it very nice and romantic. One word of warning about the entrance, which we failed to find for a few minutes: it's the middle door at the back of the building.

Willem van Oranje (William of Orange) is a large café in Delft's main square. It's three places in one: a hotel, a restaurant, and a café. I'm talking about the café part, placed outside in the square - which is the perfect place to stop for coffee and cakes while you are visiting Delft. It's the one that offers the largest portions of everything: huge delicious ice-creams, cakes and especially, the small dutch pancakes covered in sugar and fruits. The cherry-filled pancake's excellent, especially if topped with ice-cream. But I also spotted some promising huge blackforrest cakes. The kids siting nearby seemed to be very fond of them!

When in Rome, do as the Romans do - when in the Netherlands... cycle like the Dutch. This is what I thought when my friend suggested we should go to see the windmills by bike. If I had listened to my Belgian friends, whose maxim is "never cycle with a Dutchman unless you have suicidal tendencies", I would have thought twice about it; but somehow I decided to ignore their advice and enthusiastically accepted the offer.

So eventually the big day came, my friend borrowed a bike for me, and off we went: Rotterdam to Kinderdijk, about 15 km there, and another 15 back. After all it did not sound like such a great distance, and Holland's flat anyway, so I thought I could easily manage that. Hell, the distance did not prove to be too much, to be fair, and Holland turned out to be as flat as one knows but... small detail I forgot, it's a sore business for your bum.

Well, anyway, though making a big drama out of the ride, I really had a great time. The Mill Network at Kinderdijk-Elshout, which in 1997 was inscribed into the UNESCO World Heritage Sites, proved as nice as my friend had suggested. It's an area with 19 windmills on a canal, one of which can be visited inside. There's also a multi-lingual audio which explain how windmills were used for draining purposes in the polders. The best thing, though, is to bike around the windmills and see the various types of windmill architecture... yes, there is one!

Delft, another unplanned surprise... Once again the suggestion came from my Dutch friend: I had a spare afternoon and he suggested I'd leave Rotterdam (was he trying to get rid of me maybe?) Anyway, I followed his suggestion and took the train to Delft.

Delft is only 20 minutes away, but it really looks like a world apart: it's a very old town, with little stone buildings, a plesant market square, lots of little canals lined with trees, and even more tiny bridges. It's a very tiny town, but of incredible beauty.

What else? History pervades the place. Never have I seen such a huge concentration of beautiful houses, churches and museums... Every corner seemed to scream to have someplace to be visited. I think one could really spend a few days there and not get bored.

Delft... the name... where did I hear it before? It surely rang a bell... I thought about it all the way there, and eventualy gave up. I got off the train, found a map to the centre... and when I arrived I looked at a shop window and realized - the famous pottery!
Everywhere in town, but especially on the market square, you can find shops that sell traditional Delft pottery-ware - that really nice white and blue handpainted plates, tiles, vases and boxes you've maybe seen in some movie.
If you decide to do some pottery shopping, beware of fakes or machine-painted items. One rule of thumb is that, if they are cheap, they are not original. Ask for a certificate of authenticity: original ones should have it.

Another possibility is to buy items directly from the factory. Out of the 32 operating factories, only 2 remain - luckily both can be toured. My friend recommends De Delftse Pauw, Delftweg 133, Postbus 400, 2600 AK Delft. Tel: 015-2124920

Rotterdam is primarily a modern city - often also an experimental modern city. It's a city in the making, an everchanging city. And local people love it for that - they especially love the sight of the many building cranes scattered all over and around. I asked my friend to expain why - he said they show that the city`s alive and growing.

What is there to see? The tall pillar (euromaast) might not be a wonderful sight in itself, but it's a good landmark when one gets lost. One can ride the elevator to the top and enjoy great views both on the the city and the busy port. Then there are the cube houses, a row of elevated yellow cubical houses (all inhabited except one that's a museum - and opened to the public) designed by the Dutch architect Piet Blom: not only their shape is different, they are also turned 90 degrees on their own axis. They are located in the Oude Haven area (subway: blaak) and definitely worth a visit.

Finally there is Rotterdam's true symbol, the strange, yet gracious Erasmus Bridge. It was designed by the Dutch architect Ben van Berkel in 1997 and it`s an interesting piece of architecture that looks like... no one really knows what. I asked many people: some suggested a harp, others a viking ship, others again a swan. I don't know which of these theories is actually the most accurate one, if ever there's any - what they have in common is that all of them bear no connection whatsoever to Dutch life or history. Whatever it's meant to represent, its sight is beautiful, especially at dusk: its outline, then, seems particularily fragile and delicate.

When German planes hit the Netherlands, and Rotterdam in particular, they did a meticulous job: they nearly destroyed every single building. When it was time to rebuild the city the authorities voted against a project of reconstructing the city like it used to be. They said it was time for Rotterdam to move on, not back - and opted for a modern face-lift.

Today only an old area remains: the small district called Delftshaven. It's located along a canal, where the old lock still is. All the houses that surround the canal are traditional wooden houses. Docked along it there are plenty of old boats, those wooden one with high masts. Some host restaurants and bars - other appeared to be inhabited. At the end of the canal - just to remind you that you're in the Netherlands, there's an old windmill and for a while you'll have the feeling of being somewhere in the peaceful countryside instead than in a thriving busy city.