April 30, 2024 Rotterdam to Brussels

There had been some rain overnight but it was drying up with the morning sun. The temperature at 8 a.m. was 12°C, a mix of sun and cloud with a south wind about 10 km/hour. The breakfast area was not as crowded as yesterday at the same time.

Since our train to Brussels Airport was not leaving until after noon we had time for another wander. Our destination was the current city hall, Timmerhuis. It is a combination of an older brick building, Stadstimmerhuis, built in 1953 which has two of its sides visible. The new glass modular structure stretches many stories above the older structure. It appears to be the size of a city block. There are retail stores on the street level with offices and residences in the glass parts, supported by three dimensional Vierendeel beams. . The glass module structure was completed in 2015 after six years of construction.

We walked along Meant street right into the Tuesday outdoor market near Markthal. There were fish booths, cheese booths, booths selling leather goods, jewelry, second hand cloths, produce and more. Some of the prices were €1.50 /kilo for bananas, €1.75/kilo for apples or oranges, €3.50/kilo for cherry tomatoes which were quite abundant and ten eggs for €3. We explored the Markhal interior again where there were very few people compared to Saturday’s throngs. Larry took pictures of some of the 4,000 tiles on the ceiling of the hall 12 story above. There are many retail booths and restaurants. There was a cheese seller which a good variety of cheeses. Another chocolate kiosk was selling chocolate covered wooden spoons like those that were used to make the hot chocolate at the Hague Julia’s location that we had two days ago.

We saw a 17th century house, Schielandshuis, with a statue of Willem IV as a knight with the date "Anno MCCCXL” (1340). It served as the home of the polder council, for almost 150 years. Napoleon Bonaparte and his wife, Marie Louise, stayed there for a few days in 1811. Today Rotterdam Tourist Information has one of the offices in the building. We turned on to a busier street and recognized the “Santa Claus” statue in place since 2005 from last summer’s Rotterdam bicycle tour. We walked a few more blocks and turned to find ourselves on the street where last evening’s restaurant Dino’s Kitchen & Bar was located. Then it was less than 10 minutes to walk back to the hotel to finish packing and check out. We had walked over five kilometres.

Our train tickets were for the 12:11 p.m. train to Brussels airport. We were in plenty of time and searched out the Julia’s location for another chocolatmelk puur (hot chocolate). Our step count was 8,133

The trip was a little more than 90 minutes through flat country and urban centres including Antwerp, Belgium. The stations were Breda, Noorderkempen, Antwerpen-centraal, Antwerpen-Berchem, Mechelen and Brussels Zaventem Airport. The train continued into Brussels, Belgium, for three more stations.

We hefted our luggage off the train into the airport and asked where the airport shuttles were. We were told there were none. In the back of our minds we thought our hotel had an airport shuttle. Since it was sunny and the temperature was about 18°C, we elected to walk rather than take a €20 five minute taxi ride. Google showed showed a walking route. There really wasn’t a proper sidewalk or even cycling path to exit the airport property, but we followed the route and there was not much traffic. I didn’t remember to take out my tiny Garmin GPS until we had found a sidewalk about 3/4 kilometre from the start. Google did not know that the intended route had a big construction project blocking our way. We detoured around the new airport parking garage which added about ten minutes to the walk. The area was light industrial as in many airport surroundings. Just as we reached the traffic circle into the airport property my suitcase wheels wouldn’t roll properly. The wheel surface had peeled off a bit of one of the wheels. We switched suitcases and continued on our way. A little after half way we walked into a residential area of brick semidetached and townhomes.

The was a Shell station with €1.704 per litre for diesel fuel.

The hotel is located beside a park with a pond and paths that we can see from our fifth floor window. Looking out there was a family of Canada geese floating along including nine goslings. Nine seems to be the most common number for this spring’s young duck and geese population.

Our room was larger than the room in Rotterdam and so was the bed. The bathroom had a shower and soaker tub. Besides a kettle we had a Rombouts Oh Expresso (like a Keurig) machine to make coffee, plus hot chocolate mix, Lipton Yellow tea bags and instant coffee packages, plus dry creamer and sugar. This room had a bar refrigerator and a safe too. And there was a DVD machine under the TV.

When we checked our email we each received an end of voyage survey from Holland America to complete. We each chose the long form which took about 20 minutes to complete. Larry also got a survey from the train company about our trip from Rotterdam to Brussels airport. There was also time to do the Aer Lingus online check in for our flight tomorrow morning.

Since the prices in the hotel restaurant were comparable to the prices for restaurants that we googled in Zaventem, just a short ten minute walk to the town centre, we had dinner in the hotel. We chose Marinière Mussels, that came in a huge bowl, with Belgian Fries and mushroom risotto which was a very generous portion, no room for dessert. It was a contrast to yesterday’s noisy dinner. This was a relaxed dinner with only four other people at 6 p.m. in a restaurant that could easy hold 100. After dinner we went for a short walk in the park by the hotel and watched the young birds and their parents. There was the sounds of birds singing and frogs croaking.

Total steps today were 16,832 for a total of 10.2 km. This is the end of this blog. Our journey continues at: https://emeraldisle2024.blogspot.com/2024/04/b.html