Thursday, July 30

Rotterdam Centraal

I have to admit, much as I went out of my way to find cool libraries on this trip. the truly architecturally interesting buildings in the Netherlands have rather tended to be the train stations—particularly the Central Stations, or rather, in this case, "Rotterdam Centraal." The underground train platforms are of course all pretty similar, but the exterior buildings are very distinctive.

In the case of Rotterdam, Centraal Station would be one of many structures with a single distinction in common: having been built within the past 80 years, because Rotterdam was the most extensively destroyed city by bombings in World War II. Since a huge portion of it—and basically all of its city center—has been rebuilt since, the city is known for its modern architecture. In the case of Rotterdam Centraal, there was no central station prior to the war, but an original Rotterdam Centraal built in 1957; and the current building opened in 2014.

There is a 12-foot (3.6m) bronze statue of a Black woman standing on the plaza outside the main entrance, which I assumed to be a permanent installation there but is apparently planned to be in place for five years, since its first unveiling in 2023. The woman is not a real person, but reportedly the same fictional character as that of another statue that was installed in London in 2020.

The Depot Rotterdam

I had eight points of interest marked to check off on our day trip to Rotterdam—having traveled there by NS Rail, the Netherlands' national railway; one way-tickets cost us each €18.70 ($21.45), and it took about 40 minutes from Station Duivendrecht on an InterCity Direct train (there are no such trains direct from Amsterdam Centraal for some reason). We had to take a 6-stop Metro ride from our hotel to Station Duivendrecht, making the overall journey to Rotterdam—about 48 miles or 78 km—about 65 minutes by train. This was only five minutes or so more than it would have taken to drive a car.

Anyway, once actually in Rotterdam, some of my eight points of interest to check off did not quite pan out. One of these was The Depot, a very cool, reflective, bowl-shaped building with its own rooftop area that can be accessed with a museum ticket, and of course was my primary interest in it. Our first stop on a total combined five-mile loop around the city center was the Euromast (we'll get to that next), and I had no idea we'd be walking right past the Depot, the world's first publicly accessible art depot, where they store art for the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. I took just a few quick pictures while walking by; we actually would have just gone in then but it was not yet 10:30 a.m. and they did not open until 11:00. I thought it was on the route coming back, but it turns out I somehow made a mistake on its location and we were too far from it to stop there before returning to Rotterdam Centraal at the end of the day.

Euromast

And now for Rotterdam's answer to the Space Needle! Except, in this case, it's more like the Space Needle was Seattle's answer to the Euromast—which finished construction in 1960 for the Floriade, a horticultural exhibition and garden festival in Rotterdam. When the Euromast first opened, though, it stood at a height of 331 ft (101 m), making it the tallest structure in Rotterdam at the time, a title it lost to Erasmus Medical Center in 1968. In the above shot, the original height would have been just to the observatory you see roughly halfway up.

But! Then, in 1970, they added the "Space Tower," which even today is an add-on with additional cost to your admission ticket—which of course I still went for. I'm only going there once, after all. This addition added 275 ft (84m) to the height, giving it a total height of 606 ft (184.6 m). This is one foot taller than the Space Needle, but the Euromast's observatory and restaurant is at the roughly 300-ft (91.4 m) level, with the much smaller, but revolving structure affixed to the "Space Tower"—which they currently brand the "Euroscoop"—being basically a kind of ride you get in and ascend to the structure's total height.

This is the spectacular view of central Rotterdam from the Space Tower on the Euromast. In the second shot above you'll see a brief video I took while we were riding around in it. (Side note: Euromast is now the second-tallest structure in Rotterdam, behind the 705-ft / 215-m De Zalmhaven ("The Salmon Harbor") tower. This is the tallest building seen at center-left in the above tower, and we actually tried to visit the bar, Celest, on the 57th and 58th floors of the 61-story tower. But, they didn't open until 5:00 and we were too early, so, another item on my Rotterdam list unable to come to fruition. Disappointing!)

Spido Harbour Tour

This was Shobhit's one major request for Rotterdam: a harbour tour. He really wanted to see Port of Rotterdam, because of its pretty notable significance: between 1962 and 2004, it was the world's busiest port by annual cargo tonnage. Since then, it has been overtaken by around ten Asian ports (today the top 5 are in China), but Rotterdam remains the largest port in Europe. It opened in the 14th century, and currently covers about 49 square miles, both water and land; connecting the Nieuwe Waterweg (a 12.7-mile / 20.5 km canal built opened in 1872—central Rotterdam is actually 19 miles or 30 km from the North Sea) with the Nieuwe Maas River. The Port of Rotterdam stretches about 42 km or 26 miles end to end.

There are multiple companies that do Harbour Tours, but we chose Spido, largely because it was included on the one-day Rotterdam City Card we purchased. This City Card works differently from Amsterdam's, in that it offers only discounts and not free passes; most of the discounts are 25% off, as was the case here. The cards cost only €7.50 each, so we easily got our money's worth with those kinds of discounts. In the above shot you see the actual boat we boarded for the tour, which took 75 minutes and sailed only a portion of that massive port, albeit by moving into dead-end arms of it and turning back around two or three different times.

At Shobhit's suggestion, we sat in the open-air seating area on the very top of the boat, which certainly gave us the best views, but we often could not quite hear the English portions of the tour narration. It was still fun, and the only downside was how cloudy it was in Rotterdam most of the day we were there (thankfully it was much less so while we went up the Euromast, which was the first thing we walked to from Centraal Station), the only mostly-cloudy day we had during our first week in the Netherlands, which was mostly sunny and quite hot.

Fenix Museum

De Zalmhaven was on our itinerary to walk to next, as it is maybe only a block or two from where we boarded the Spido boat. But, as I said, we found Celest to be closed and could not go up. But, Shobhit did notice this interesting structure with a spiraling silver observatory of some kind on top, and he wanted to walk across the Erasmus Bridge anyway. This was a roughly one-mile walk from where we boarded the Spido Harbour Tour, and when we arrived we found it to be a museum: Fenix, an art museum about migration. Exhibits included a Suitcase Labyrinth (I did not fully register at the time that this whole museum was dedicated to migration, so now the suitcases make sense); multiple sections of art displays, including a photography exhibit; and of course the architectural centerpiece, the "Tornado," which consists of two wooden staircases inside what look from a distance like stainless steel tubes. They connect each floor and the viewing platform on top of the building.

Erasmus Bridge

The Erasmus Bridge, an architectural centerpiece of Rotterdam, was not specifically on my list either, but Shobhit decided he wanted to walk across it. Completed in 1996, it features a 456-ft (139-m) pylon with a bent shape that apparently earned it the nickname "The Swan." This bridge has a total length of 2,631 ft (802 m).

Markthal

I was pretty thrilled by the discovery of Markthal ("Market Hall") in my pre-trip research on Rotterdam. This is a public market entirely enclosed by a horseshoe-shaped, residential building, some of the homes in which have windows overlooking the market. The ceiling is beautifully painted, and the "holes" on either end are actually glass walls. This would obviously be the best public market to go to on a rainy day,

There are many restaurant establishments with rooftop seating on a second level. I tried to go up a staircase to get a photo, only to be met by a young man asking if I wanted seating for two. When I said I just wanted to get a picture of the view, he said there were no photos allowed there, and there was a staircase off to the side of the market that could be used for that. I'm sure I could have gotten photos if we had actually been seated, but we already had a snack at a place I saw recommended by a YouTuber sharing tips about Rotterdam: we went to a place called Tofu Heaven and had seasoned fried tofu that was absolutely delicious.

An exterior shot of Markthal. This was easily one of the coolest things we saw in Rotterdam. The 12-story structure apparently contains 228 apartments.

Cube Houses

Thankfully, given we only had a day trip to Rotterdam, all of our points of interest I assembled were within a five-mile loop walk from Amsterdam Centraal Station—and the last few were all just a few blocks from each other: the Cube Houses are only about a block and a half walk from Markthal. People also actually live in these—including, we discovered only when we arrived, the guy operating the "Kijk-Kubus Museum-house" (Show Cube Museum-house). This museum is literally his own home, which he has lived in since the complex opened 42 years ago, in 1984! He just mans a little desk up the entrance during regular business hours, with most rooms very tidy with minimalist decor, and a few rooms blocked from public access. But, he told us it's his home he lives in when the museum is not open. A few spots did have cabinets full of stuff in them, though, such as this one with a ton of Star Wars memorabilia in it.

We had some slight confusion when we first arrived, because the Museum-house was definitely the one we wanted, but at first we went up another that had a vibe of being much more recent; someone evidently took one of the units and painted all over its interior. I'm glad we figured out the clarification and went to the original guy. As far as I know, the rest of the units are just people living in them as regular homes.

Rotterdam Central Library

I took this shot on our way from Markthal to the Cube Houses—this building is across the public square from the east end of Markthal—and I had no idea it's the usual building for the Rotterdam Central Public Library. I just thought it was interesting with all its giant yellow tubing wrapped around its exterior. Then, after some slight trouble finding it, we got to what I only much later learned is the temporary location of their Central Library—no wonder it wasn't all that architecturally remarkable! It turns out the original library building closed for renovations last year, and is set to reopen with a new addition in either late 2028 or early 2029, depending on the source.

Still, as has become our custom when exploring the Central Public Library in new cities, we worked our way to the top of the current, temporary building—or at the very least, the top floor we could access, which was floor 7, I believe—and worked our way back down to the bottom. The Central Library in Amsterdam was much more interesting, but now I know why; if we had been in Amsterdam a year earlier or three years later, the Rotterdam Central Library would clearly have been the more interesting one.

Friday, July 31

Den Haag Centraal

The Hague was somewhat of a mixed bag, at least when compared to Rotterdam, where there are far more things to do; but, I'm still really glad we went, even if three of the things on my list for this city either didn't pan out at all or didn't pan out the way I wanted them to. Shobhit got to a point about halfway through the day when he felt like we might have been better off staying in Amsterdam, but I was all about making the most of the day. Side note: Den Haag Centraal Station is itself pretty cool, especially from inside. To the left you can see the elevated platform that the trains run through; it can also be seen from outside the station here.

Royal Library of the Netherlands

The Royal Library of the Netherlands is quite close to Den Haag Centraal, but guess what? There is no public access to the book shelves! Not unless you have a membership, anyway. A young woman working a reception counter in the very lovely lobby area noted that we could view some of the book stacks through windows on one side of the room.

Then Shobhit noticed coffee at a little coffee machine in this reception area, and that became the most exciting part of the visit, for him. While walking through the connected National Archive building on our way out, he spilled some of that coffee on the floor. A very nice woman working another nearby little cafe not only gave him some napkins to wipe it up with, but offered to let him come behind the counter and wash his hands in her sink afterward.

Peace Palace

I tried very, very hard to book a guided tour at The Hague's Peace Palace, which houses both the International Court of Justice and the Permanent Court of Arbitration. It opened in 1913 with the help of the Carnegie Foundation (which Andrew Carnegie created just for this purpose, so it could be funded legally), 14 years after the Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, from which the Permanent Court of Arbitration was born.

Anyway, touring buildings and institutions like this is sometimes tricky business, with things like timed entry, limited availability, and minimum time beforehand needed for booking. I tried several times to book a guided tour over the few weeks before our trip, but no availability would show up on their online calendar. We walked to the building anyway, and I'm glad we did: it turns out there were no guided tours happening that day, no public access to the building at all—but, their visitor center was still open, which is large enough and full of enough displays that we could still do an audio tour, and so we did. I will admit we rushed through it a bit; I was disappointed not to get inside the building, but what I did see and hear was still very interesting.

The Hague Tower

Here's one that it seemed was not going to pan out—and then it did! The Hague Tower, which you can only climb to its ~85-meter (~279 ft) observatory with a guided tour at 2:00, which was not fully clear to us when we first reached the tower at about 1:10, and the door was closed and locked on the side with just a small poster about visiting the tower. There was no wifi available right there, so we went to a nearby restaurant that turned out to be spectacular, called Zebedeüs. Shobhit had gone immediately to the bathroom when we sat at our table, and the young waiter immediately came up and started speaking to me in Dutch. When I apologized and said I only spoke English, he immediately switched to his own very good English, which is quite common. I did get wifi at this restaurant, and the waiter even tried to help us with what little he knew about The Hague Tower's hours of operation, but between that and certain pages of their website only loading in Dutch, we didn't get anywhere. Instead, we ordered a burrata dish that was spectacular; and then, when we discovered their wifi password was "pecan pie," we decided that clearly meant we had to have a slice of their pecan pie. Both were so good that we told our young waiter that Zebedeüs was the best place we had been so far in The Hague, which made him very happy.

But, we hadn't been to The Hague Tower yet! And when we were done at Zebedeüs, we walked back over to the tower, right at 2:00, and this time they were not only open, but had openings for the guided tour, which involved climbing 288 steps on very narrow staircases. It actually was kind of exhausting—but worth it! There are three landing levels where we could rest for a bit and our volunteer tour guide could speak to us all—for the first quarter or so of the tour, he spoke first in Dutch and then in English, having been told the tour would need to be bilingual; it turned out there were no Dutch people on the tour, though, and the one family he thought was Dutch was actually German. They told him he could just do the entire tour in English.

Anyway, the above shot was one I took when the tour guide told us they used the same carpenters as those who make the Netherlands' famous windmills to construct the wooden beams in this tower. One of the landings was also just below the tower's four bells, all of which are centuries old, like the tower itself; I even got a very brief video of the last incredibly loud gong while we were standing beneath them ("I warned you!" the tour guide said, shortly after the ringing scared the shit out of several of us).

But, of course, here's why I really wanted to go up The Hague Tower: the view! I researched at least one observation deck of some kind or another in every city we planned to visit, and this was the only one I found in the Hague. This city, at about 549,000 within its city limits, is the third-largest in the Netherlands—but, it is the most densely populated, at 17,200/sq mi (6,650/km2). Compare to Amsterdam, the largest city with nearly twice the city population, with a fourth-highest density of 13,670/sq mi (5,277/km2). For comparison purposes for people local to my own Seattle region, Seattle's density is 9,302.2/sq mi (3,591.59/km2). It's worth noting that of all non-microstates in Europe, the Netherlands has the highest overall population density. This is a region roughly the size of the U.S. states of Massachusetts and Connecticut combined, with a total population of about 18.4 million people. (The combined population of Massachusetts and Connecticut is about 10.8 million.)

Anyway, this high density in the Hague is clearly reflected in its city center skyline, the only one among the Dutch major cities where nearly all of its tall buildings are close together in one area. In both Amsterdam and Rotterdam, for example, there are multiple smaller clusters of building skylines in different parts of the city.

So: I don't know if Shobhit would agree, even though he clearly did also enjoy the Hague Tower tour (this is part of the St. James Church, built between the 14th and 16th centuries, but for me, this alone made it worth the day trip to the Hague.

[posted 9:22am]