April 27, 2024 Arrival in Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Overnight the clocks again went forward an hour to Western European time. We will remain on that time for the next four days. Today is King’s Day in the Netherlands with an atmosphere much like Canada Day. Many people were wearing something with the colour orange or the colours of the Netherlands flag.

Having four star loyalty status, besides unlimited complimentary laundry, which we used twice, another perk is not being assigned a specific time slot to vacate the ship. Starting at 7 a.m., every 15 minutes until the last slot at 9:15 a.m. the colours and numbers of previously issued and affixed luggage tags were called. We can leave the ship anytime between 7 and 9:15 a.m. The time slots help the crew in the luggage warehouse organize the baggage into smaller groups depending on the coloured tags. Our anytime slot has its own group.

It was a cool morning at just 8°C, wind was 21 km. The sky looked like rain any minute. We were in the Deck 2 dining room for breakfast by 8 a.m. We had our jackets and backpacks with us. We passed a line of people about half the length of the ship in line to disembark the ship, by the time we were ready to leave the line was only the width of the ship. Ship’s security used the facial recognition machine to confirm that people were leaving the ship. We followed the signs to baggage claim then to Customs and had our passports stamped. We were standing sheltered from the downpour trying to remember which building across the street housed the Coffee Company café where we had coffee in August when we visited. We found it when the rain almost stopped and stayed sipping our coffee for an hour until the rain has passed. We realized in Toronto airport two weeks ago that we forgot to pack umbrellas, we have rain jackets and pants for cycling next month, but they were in the suitcases and the rain was predicted to end in an hour or so.

The route from the cruise terminal to the train station, which is near our hotel, was over the Erasmus bridge and straight along Schiedamsedujk which changed names to Coolsingel and ended at the huge Hofplein traffic circle by our hotel. We passed a public art sculpture called Cascade with barrels and people mixed together in a pile. A few streets later was the imposing Neo-Renaissance city hall, Stadhuis Rotterdam. It only took 45 minutes to walk there pulling our suitcases. We were too early for checkin, so our luggage was stored and we went out to explore. We had walked about 3.5 kilometres.

Google maps gave us a route to follow to go to the Kijk-Kubus Museum and Markthal nearby. As we crossed a canal we saw a single white swan floating in the water. It only took 20 minutes to walk there. There was a short line to view one of the cube houses units which is a museum. They were completed in 1984. There are three levels accessed by very steep stairs. All the rooms have angled walls. The bathroom is a little bigger than an airplane bathroom with a shower added. These units are 1,075 square feet but would be a challenge to furnish. They are worth €450,000 (658,270 Cdn$) They are built above Blaak near Blaak Station also known by it's nickname "Blaak Forest") A block away was Markthal, a residential apartment building of 228 apartment, office space, underground parking for 1,200 cars, and a huge indoor market. The cavernous indoor market has a tiled ceiling 12 storeys high made up of 4,000 individually manufactured tiles. The building was completed in 2014. Today being Saturday and King’s Day there was also a big outdoor market in the square outside. There are many bicycle parking lots near the Markthal. We saw one down a short staircase that had bicycles with a second tier about them, but it looked like you had to lift your bike to place it on the holder. It would be at least a one and a half meter lift. Step count was 8,418

A few streets away was Laurenskerk, Rotterdam’s main church built between 1449 and 1525. It was heavily damaged in the Rotterdam Blitz, by the Nazi Germans in May 1940, with only the tower and walls surviving. Restoration was completed in 1968. On the lawn in front of the church is the statue of Desiderius Erasmus. It is a bronze statue and celebrated its 400th anniversary two years ago, having been unveiled on April 30, 1622. Erasmus is considered one of the most influential thinkers and a major figure of the Dutch Renaissance period.

We went back to the hotel with the hope that a room would be ready and one was. It is larger than our ship’s stateroom and we can both have Internet at the same time.

We were tired after walking over five kilometres, as well as the three plus kilometres to get to the hotel form the ship. We ended up napping more than three hours. It was time to find a place to eat dinner. But first we wanted to see how far the Rotterdam Central train station was from the hotel. It was less than a ten minute walk. We continued our walk noticing a fine mist occasionally and listening to the sounds of King’s Day. We chose Phó Saigon for Vietnamese food. It was almost full but had a table for two. The food was delicious. We took a different route back to the hotel including the pedestrian mall on Lijnbaan, one of the shopping streets. King’s Day was going full tilt. We were back to the hotel by 8 p.m. having walked another 3.5 kilometres. The total step count was 19,843