Staying in Rotterdam

This is from the trip my wife and I did between March and April of 2016.

We traveled to Rotterdam from Amsterdam by car. The travel itself was roughly over an hour of driving.
We could've done the travel by train, but we had already rented a car for several days, and decided it was gonna be easier to drive the suitcases than to travel with them by train.

About Rotterdam - first impressions

Coming from the US, and this being our first trip to Europe, Rotterdam felt kind of a disappointment. Let me explain.

When we arrived to Amsterdam on our flight from Portland, we were thrilled with almost everything Amsterdam had. There were row houses, canals, narrow streets, bikes everywhere, and everything was just old and charming.

Right outside Amsterdam's Central Station

Rotterdam was different. Much different. In fact, when we arrived to Rotterdam we felt like we were in any other large city in the US. We could've taken a picture of Rotterdam in any corner, send it to a family member and say we were in Boston, or Seattle.
There was nothing really visually charming about Rotterdam.

Roundabout in downtown Rotterdam

See, Rotterdam was mostly bombed during wold war 2. Amsterdam was not.
Since Rotterdam was basically destroyed, the city got rebuilt almost from scratch after the war, so there aren't many 300+ year old buildings in the city.
The city is very modern with tall glass commercial buildings, wider streets, dedicated bike lanes, and with tons of modern art and sculptures around.
It was almost as if a Rotterdam rebuilt a city for the future, instead of trying to replica it's past.

Biking across the "swan" bridge

Some 70's looking apartment complex

Police station in Rotterdam - Old and new buildings

Don't get me wrong. If I were to live in the Netherlands, Rotterdam would probably the place to live in with better, and larger apartments, and more green spaces for kids.

However, as a tourist going to "the old Europe" Rotterdam was not any different than going to bike-friendly version of Denver.

Where we stayed

We stayed at the "Hampshire Hotel - Savoy Rotterdam", which was located about a mile away from Rotterdam's central train station, and just a block away from a tram station and the "Blaak Market". (that's the name of the market, and it is not a black market)

The hotel itself was fine but their cleaning and supplies services were pretty mediocre. On top of that, people in a nearby room smoked at night, so that made it even worse.

I believe the hotel had free car parking, although we never needed it because we returned the car once we arrived to Rotterdam.

Getting around Rotterdam

We only had a few things we really wanted to do in Rotterdam itself, so this meant that we used Rotterdam as our "hub" where we would return to every night.
Because of this, most of our "getting around Rotterdam" was done riding bikes.

We first rented bikes 2 times. The first time was at a proper local bike shop named "CZwaan", which was located near Rotterdam Centraal (central station), and conveniently located next to Hertz, making the transition from rental car to rental bike very easy.
We rented these bikes for 3 days, and we took these bikes to Kinderdijk.

The second time we rented bikes for 24 hours from a hardware store next to our hotel. These were the bikes we took on the train with us to Den Haag, and the LDS temple in Zoetermeer.

I'm both cases we kept the bikes overnight and just parked outside, like everyone else.

We only drove our rented car for about 4 hours the day we arrived to Rotterdam, and it seemed a lot less caotic than driving in Amsterdam, but still slower than riding bikes.

Things to do in Rotterdam

One of the things we really had to do was visiting a church that has a sculpture made by my wife's great great grandfather.
He made this status located outside the Paradijskerk – Oud-Katholieke Kerk Rotterdam.

Blaak Market

The second thing we wanted to do was visit the Blaak Market. This market, located inside a colorful and modern art looking building with a circular wall/ceiling, has multiple local-ish vendors with fixed and highly arranged booths, so it was not quite the street market thing we were looking for.
They do offer a large variety of things from just fruits and vegetables, to fish and chips, to Belgium chocolate (there's a Leonidas' store inside).

Inside the Blaak Market

Below and around the market there's a small shopping mall, and a grocery store.

However, on Tuesdays there's an outdoor street market and flea market that sets up outside the Blaak Market. This is a much more unorganized and artisan market than what you'll find inside the Blaak Market.

Ate amazing waffles and poffertjes

We knew what waffles were (obviously) but we didn't know about poffertjes. In fact, my wife claims she had never even heard what they were before our trip.

Poffertjes, waffles and Chocomel for breakfast

We found this awesome little restaurant that specializes in poffertjes, and my wife loved it. The place was "Poffertjes salon Seth" on the north side of the Blaak Market.
Keep in mind that restaurants in all of Holland, including Rotterdam, close fairly early (around 8pm) and are usually closed on Sunday.


Aside from these few things, we didn't really do much more in Rotterdam itself. Instead, we went from Rotterdam to multiple places for the day.
Here's a link for each activity and location we went to:

• Day trip to Kinderdijk (you HAVE to do this if you go to The Netherlands)
• Day trip by train to Brugge, Belgium
• Day trip to the LDS Temple in Zoetermeer, and a quick visit to Den Haag