La Roche-sur-Yon

La Roche-sur-Yon

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Sterker door strijd

Dutch Phrase of the Day
Sterker door strijd - "Stronger by struggle"
Also, the motto of the next city on my itinerary, Rotterdam.

Rotterdam Centraal Station
I spent the next two nights in the "Gateway to Europe", a nickname that came from Rotterdam's position as a major international commercial centre.  The city is the largest port in Europe, was the busiest port in the world until 2004, and sits on the delta formed by the Rhine and Meuse rivers on the North Sea.  These rivers then travel into Europe, straight to the industrial Ruhr region of Germany.

View from Rotterdam looking over the river
Rotterdam is also known for its strikingly harsh and edgy modern architecture.  Several of these buildings gave me the chills; they were massive, intimidating, isolated, and inhuman-looking.  Both amazing and creepy.  Adding to this effect is the fact that only a few areas of the city seem to bustle with people.  The rest is industrial, a little run-down at ground level, and eerily quiet.

One of the more intriguing pieces of architecture are the "cube houses" on Overblaak Street.  They stretch over the street and then onto a building near the port.  It's difficult to grasp the shape of the structure; I had to walk around the area a few times to figure out how it was laid out.  I assume there's a horizontal floor in each cube, but I keep picturing all the furniture and inhabitants of the houses sliding down into the bottom middle point.
Cube houses

Stroopwafel
I was lucky to be in Rotterdam on a Tuesday, because there was a market in Binnenrotte, the largest market square in the Netherlands.  The only downside is that the market is infested with pickpockets (like many large markets in Europe).  Being a port city, they had several fresh fish stands, as well as cheese, fruit, vegetables, clothes, and just about anything you can imagine.  Some fresh fruit and stroopwafel made for a wonderful breakfast.  Stroopwafel is two very thin, chewy waffles with something like caramel syrup in between.  Delicious.

The other great part of Rotterdam was actually my hostel, which was called King Kong.  It was very inexpensive and had excellent reviews online, so I decided to give it a try.  King Kong is probably the most impeccably clean hostel I've ever stayed in; the walls and beds were white, the bathrooms modern, and the floors wooden - they were trying for kind of a "modern jungle" ambiance.  The best part was upstairs where my room was located; in the common area, knotted ropes hung from the ceiling for people to swing on...you know, in case you really wanted to get into King Kong character.  They called it the "gym".

No comments:

Post a Comment