I suppose that if you are “going Dutch,” and you are lulled by the lure of Amsterdam Gouda, Haarlem, or even The Hague, all gables and canals, then Rotterdam may come as a bit of a disappointment.

Well, fooled be you.

Like going to see the Mona Lisa and walking past the Pissarro, without much of a glance.

Hotel New York, last drinks before travelling to New York on Holland-America Line

You see, the Dutch fought the Wehrmacht to a standstill on the shores of the River Maas, Rotterdam, in May 1940 to the extent that Hitler sent over the Luftwaffe and flattened the heart of the city, threatening to do the same to other Dutch cities. Surrender was the only option.

The older Dutch in particular, still recall the Blitz, and retain a particular enmity for the Germans. Younger generations are more tolerant and forgiving. The footpaths in Rotterdam, where the destruction was complete, still feature red ground lights indicating the boundaries. It covered a wide area where over 900 people were killed, while many had already left the city, when the fighting flared on the edge of the Maas. 

After the war, with a virtual “new canvas,” Rotterdam took a different approach than Warsaw, which had been similarly flattened. The Poles “built back the old Warsaw,” using as their guide the earlier city paintings by Canaletto. Rotterdam went modern and the city now has some of the most striking architecture seen anywhere in Europe, a blending of contemporary styles with traditional gabled structures on its outskirts. Little wonder that it was accorded the European City of the Year in 2014. 

Delftse Poort Building opposite the Railway station 

Waterfront Rotterdam

Rotterdam is the largest port in Europe. It extends 14 kilometres up the Maas, Rhine, Scheldt estuary, a strategic “control of the mighty river mouths” position since village of “Rotta” began, well before its consolidation in Medieval times and beyond.  It was already a major port when the Dutch East India company began using its ideal position, back in the 15th Century, and has continued to grow ever since, given its “control” of the headwaters of the mighty Rhine. 

The Erasmus Bridge and some of Rotterdam's modern architecture

We were lucky to have as a guide, a cousin who had become a “Rotterdamer” and, like thousands of Dutch men and women, commuted daily by hi-speed train to The Hague, Amsterdam, and other Dutch cities. But many more come in the opposite direction, hence the saying, Amsterdam is for playing, Rotterdam is for working. Like so much of the Netherlands, what sets it apart is not the huge case of piles, for everything in the Netherlands seems to rest on piles, but in Rotterdam, in the city centre, there are many tall buildings. Except for the St Lawrence Cathedral, which was bomb-ravaged but rebuilt, all the tall buildings are new and house a bevy of world renowned names: Unilever, Shell, resources, medical and insurance giants as well as the world’s major shipping services companies. It is Europe’s major port for containerized goods, all moved by smart machines and a handful of computer operators, so cutting costs, and stevedoring incidents.

The Centraal Station of Rotterdam

The platforms looking very mid afternoons

We had barely three days in Rotterdam, so like looking at fruit, we merely skinned the surface, feasting the eyes, the only taste of our labours being walking, the sights, smells, and occasional coffee indulgence.

Good on you Mum; Winter transport, Rotterdam

Cousin very kindly gave us his comfortable apartment in suburban Kralingen, dubbed the “Kensington of Rotterdam.” Wonderful old architecture with cosy housing made more delightful by the traditional Dutch penchant for keeping the curtains open for much of the day and night, so that everyone can see inside the cleanliness and orderliness. Good transport links, trams, an efficient underground, everywhere cycle paths, plenty of shops, supermarkets and restaurants nearby. Excellent cultural and sporting activities in and around the city, even an artificial “beach” on the Maas. Oh yes, very comfortable indeed.

Street scene in up-market Kralingen, downtown Rotterdam, early morning

On a morning straight out of the deep freeze, dressed like a Polar contingent, we took to Rotterdam’s streets. Into the main city square, a vast open area like the Red one in Moscow. With scarves pulled more tightly, we headed straight to Market Hall, a prominent architectural, “Now what is this?” feature. Like food for garnishing inquisitiveness, we entered a huge horse-shoe shaped “elephant’s back-like” barn that would easily accommodate three high tailed Jumbos of the mechanical persuasion.  All over the inside there is an eye-catching mural done on aluminium plates, a break-through world’s first in design and laser application, sheltering eleven floors of office and accommodation windows. Yes, there is office space, and over 200 apartments, as innovation for the structure was on the basis of “adapt as we go,” a sort of Sydney Opera house innovation, but this time on the inside, an artwork that Rotterdamers liken to the work of a modern day Michelangelo, in the Sistine Chapel. 

The Market Hall of Rotterdam

The inside of the Market Hall and its amazing artwork

It is a unique, stunning building, but inside a real market, full of cheeses, meats, vegetables, in fact anything edible or saleable, and coffee places for lingering, observing, or sniffing a real market aroma. The Dutch have a nickname for everything and they call it the Kroomboog; in Wild West terms, we would probably say Oxbow. Indeed, after a coffee, we went to the main “shopping street” which the Dutch call the “Koopsloot”- the Buying Ditch. These masters who have tamed the waters all over and throughout the country, simply laid out the course of a “shopping street” over the top of the drain with top-end shops on the banks, and water-like steps on the way in and out, to simulate wavelets. And of course, she the shopping tamer, had to take the waters!

An example of Rotterdam's enterprising architecture

Cousin and I took a different tack. In the C19, the erstwhile Queen Wilhelmina travelled on the Royal Barge to her waterfront right Royal place of indulgence on the Maas to watch races by yachts from the Royal Rotterdam Yacht Club. A beautiful white structure, Newport-like and similarly opulent. Then again, Rotterdam already had its own Witte Huis (White House), a 10 storey structure from 1898, art nouveau style, a business enterprise, once the tallest structure in Europe and fortunately not a casualty of the German bomb.

Water Taxi across the River Maas

We crossed the Maas to its northern shore in a beautiful wooden water taxi skippered by a woman captain, fully qualified in maritime affairs given the busy nature, night and day, of the Maas and its various waterways. Our destination was Hotel New York, once the headquarters of the famous Holland-America Line. It was the departure point for hundreds of thousands of emigres going to ‘America,’ from 1889 to 1989. In that final year, the business was bought by US and Canadian interests and went to a new headquarters in Seattle, Washington. These days, ships with Dutch names continue a’cruisin’. One of the earlier ships, the Westerland, carried the Dutch royals when fleeing to England in 1940 and while anchored in Falmouth, became the headquarters of the Dutch Government in Exile.

Hotel New York, last drinks before travelling to New York on Holland-America Line 

The old Departures Hall for the Holland-America Line

The Hotel is once again, art nouveau in style and was completed in 1917. We only went to the bar and casual restaurant area, but the architects kept the period departure hall structure intact, and the old spiral staircase. I went to the old black and white tiled toilets, walking past cases of emigre memorabilia and large old fashioned, in the hold cargo, “steamer trunks” as I remembered my parents bringing, first to Indonesia and later to Australia. Cousin and I had some delicious meat croquettes, and for a while, I felt like a Dutchman. It has become a ritual over time. I don't feel as though I am back in the Netherlands until I have tasted a vlees kroket!  Mind you, here you could “taste” the atmosphere as it once must have been, the shouts, scurrying kids, tears, the mixture of excitement and trepidation, friends and circumstance left behind, some sadness but for many, much relief.

Dutch croquettes on brown bread & mustard - now I feel Dutch!

Afterwards, the ferry across the Maas see, looking at the mighty Erasmus Bridge, built after Jerry and the “placemakers" had done their darnedest to cross an earlier bridge in 1940. It is a cable stay, bascule bridge (it has a mighty draw-bridge at one end, to allow tall and cruise ships entry to the inner harbour areas. The taxi took us a little way up a canal, by the usual Dutch collection of shallow draft barge boats with their big wooden side-keels then to the statue that symbolises Rotterdam. It is a sculpture of a tortured man looking skywards, the Anguish of the Ruined City by Russian sculptor Ossip Zadkine. Very evocative. In the distance I could see the Euromast, at 276 feet the highest structure in Rotterdam and for so long, another symbol of the city. 

Statue to the suffering of Rotterdam in the Blitz 1940

There is, too, the case of the curious Cube House - and in this case the architect says it is a symbolic “gathering of many trees in a forest” … as represented by cube houses. Built, constructed, or assembled as though with a Buildabrics or Lego formula, much of the space is unusable, yet the “forest” concept has also been carried out in another part of the Netherlands and also in Canada. Clearly it is not for square pegs, but it contains a youth hostel, maybe the young find it kinky and cute? 

The Cube House, Rotterdam

The Rotterdam railway station is another architectural marvel, a structure like a giant ship’s prow, in keeping with Rotterdam’s shipping prowess, yet lightness over its platform structure, glass and steel, like so many great European stations. But being Dutch it also has a dynamic - and necessary - bike storage facility, with bikes pulled down and raised into a second storey ‘hutch’ for the sake of space and security. And there are thousands of places available, and they are all filled each working day. Nothing like a ride home after a hard day at the office, rugged and coated against inclement weather, everywhere, bike paths as prominent at roads. Just watch those tram tracks!    

Bicycles EVERYWHERE; No room at the "in" - Rotterdam station

Bicycles in a heap, and more interesting Rotterdam architecture

After driving in periodically heavy rain followed by a streak of sun, we had a wonderful day with good friends, first at their stunning home in the beautifully set, forest enclosed village of Oisterwijk, Brabant. Later we were taken for a wonderfully atmospheric lunch at the Boshuys Hermitage, an old farmhouse converted into a restaurant in 1962, using locally gathered beams and timbers to blend in with original standings. It was a bleak winter’s day but we were snug inside, the food inspirational and delicious, even swans on the pool at the front of the Huys during a break in the weather. As is usual in the Netherlands, the dog came too. Perfectly behaved, of course. Everywhere in the Netherlands, as elsewhere in parts of Europe, you see dogs, in shops, in trains, in restaurants, and if small enough, in the cabin of planes when travelling to holidays in Spain!

Boshuys Hermitage near Oesterwijk, Brabant, Netherlands

I also had a day to look at places identified with my stepfather’s heritage, together with his niece, in Zeist in the province of Utrecht. Efficient Dutch rail makes cross and up-country travel so easy. Again, a wonderful town with neatness of setting of its public buildings, palatial homes in majestic locations near forests with herds of deer, full of mysterious paths that led into the darkness of the massed pine trees. We visited my stepfather’s schools and the “family plot” in a graveyard, if such things can be so, in a beautiful tree rich, tranquil setting. Zeist also has a Slot, a charming, grand C17th Residence with gardens like stately English ones and years later two architecturally empathetic schools were built in similar brick, one for boys on one side, one for girls on the other. You can imagine the trysts a mere ditch away!

Council Chambers in Zeist

We drove back to an overnight stay in Amsterdam via the historic town of Leiden, first settled on the confluence of the new and the old Rhine and flourished in the cloth trade from the C17th to C19th. Many of the settlers who founded New Amsterdam - later New York, came from Leiden. My mother was a nurse at the major teaching hospital in WWII, when the city was bombed several times by the Allies but today it retains its innate “typically Dutch” charms, especially on market days when much of the old town’s canals are clothed in stalls and people.

Market day in Leiden

I enjoy my visits to the Netherlands more each occasion and through books, discussion, being able to speak the language and read much of the printed word - albeit slowly, I am learning more of my heritage. It makes me richer in knowledge, on each occasion. It is a place where I feel comfortable.  In many ways, Australia is not unlike the Netherlands, with some of the same problems, attitudes, respectful of the law but not cowed by it, a generally good global citizen. My Australian allegiance is un-questioned, but it remains a comfortable stance, to have a little bit of a foot in the “other camp,”on occasions.”

Winfred Peppinck is the Tales of the Traveling Editor for Wandering Educators

All photos courtesy and copyright Winfred Peppinck