When you think of The Netherlands, you will probably think of the super old houses of Amsterdam, the canals, the flat land and the cows. At least, I hope you do not think of drugs and whores. The thing is though, there is one city in particular that makes my country feel a bit more like a real worldly place, which is Rotterdam. I went there for a weekend and it was great!

I have been there many times before, but I never really did all the touristy things. I did take the Spido boat and went on the Euromast before, but I never took the splashtour bus nor did I go and see the small version of Rotterdam in Miniworld. I dined at Hotel New York because it has an amazing atmosphere and even better food, and I had breakfast at Las Palmas, which is the restaurant of a famous chef. It was hilarious for me to go there, as he really dislikes vegetarians hihi. Thankfully his kitchen staff did not, cause the food was excellent.

I stayed at the Art Hotel Rotterdam, which has a pretty odd collection of weird things that would be perfect in a National Treasure-kinda movie. The room itself had one big painting, but was pretty standard. That was fine, cause I only paid 55 euros for it. I thought it would be very much outside of the city for that price, but it was actually pretty close. I would recommend this hotel if you ever travel to Rotterdam, unless you are going on a romantic trip or something, as the hotel rooms are -again- very standard. It is very easy to reach by metro though.

The days in Rotterdam were pretty misty, which was a big let-down as Rotterdam is famous for it’s New York-esque tall buildings we kinda thank to the second world war. Rotterdam was bombed heavily during that time and the destruction of buildings made it possible for modern buildings to arise. They are not near a kilometer or something, but still a solid one hundred something meters, which is impressive. And beautiful, it really feels like a modern city.

I love Rotterdam and I would move there anytime. It is such a nice melting pot of cultures, the people are nice, you can shop till you drop (Lush! Bijenkorf! Everything!), you can do touristy stuff and you can party. The party bit I did not explore this time I went there, but I have done that ten years ago and looking at the advertisements, Rotterdam has only gotten better at that. It really is a very inspiring city, filled with art, cool people: it feels fresh and new, and young and lively.

The Euromast was not the best idea as it was so misty, but I feel like it belongs in your schedule when you do Rotterdam the touristy way. The amphibian bus was pretty cool too, though it did not go boating for too long as of the mist. It was cool though, we did two splashes and it feels superweird to just drive into the water by bus. The cool thing was that they used a super tacky 2001 A Space Odyssey build up song before we went in to the water, which was hilarious.

It was a good time though and the bus tour after was pretty nice as well. Miniworld is very cute, I would not pay the 10-something euros it usually is, and I got a little scared by how much there was to look at. I am weird. But it was nice too, I like how everything just clicked together, it was very logical and it looked pretty cute.

After doing some shopping in the “koopgoot” and quickly taking a peak into the Markthallen, which is a lot less food market and a bit too normal market for my taste (beautiful building though!), I went home again, feeling very proud to have such an awesome city in my country. And alright, feeling a bit bad about all my shoppings at Lush, but I will make a seperate blog about that haha.

I really had a lovely time in Rotterdam, there is so much to do, I find it the most inspiring city in The Netherlands. 🙂