“This could be Rotterdam or anywhere” or so a famous song goes, and it hits home. Rotterdam is dull, grey, and lacking nearly anything of interest to travellers.
At a glance…
- Days To Spend: At most 1
- Get Around: Metro, tram, bus, or your own two feet!
- Get In and Out: By train
- Pay: With Euros, most likely using a bank card
- Speak: Just use English
- See: Markthal, the Cube Houses
- Should you go?: Nope. Definitely not.
General Impressions
There’s nothing in Rotterdam worth seeing. It’s a very modern city, filled with ugly brutalist buildings, and lacking any degree of soul, a rare indictment for a European city. It’s quite frankly boring, though I will admit, being severely sleep deprived definitely did not help our opinion of this city.
Public Transport
Getting Around
There’s a metro, buses, and trams, but we mostly used light rail to get us to and from our BeWelcome host, mostly to get to the train station.
Getting In and Out
Fortunately, the best thing to do in Rotterdam is quite easily accessible, as it’s train station is very well connected to basically every other Dutch city, and to cities in Belgium and the German border.
Food
One somewhat appealing part of Rotterdam is the giant food market at the Markthal, where you can sample food from all over the world. Our favourites were Dutch croquettes and Spanish churros. Dutch supermarkets also serve delicious pastries and sausage rolls, and these formed the basis of our breakfasts and lunches.
Money
Euros are used here, and it seems the Dutch have a preference for card payments, but paying with cash is definitely possible in most, if not all, places.
Language
Though the Dutch speak, well, Dutch, everyone, and I mean everyone, speaks English, and even if you try to speak Dutch they will switch to English immediately.
Time
Frankly, the maximum amount of time I’d spend in Rotterdam is the minimum amount of time it takes to leave. However, if you are intent on staying, I think anything worth seeing can be seen in a day, though there are some nice places around if you want to use Rotterdam as base.
My Favourite Spots
Markthal
Already mentioned on this post, the Markthal is a giant market hall featuring food from around the world. This part of Rotterdam is genuinely cool, with somewhat interesting art and architecture, and a fortune of varying cuisines to sample.
Spots That Might Be Good
The Cube Houses
We only saw these architectural experiments from the outside, not wanting to drop a few euros to go inside, but they certainly look interesting from the outside! If you’re into modern, experimental architecture, seeing these might well make you happy.
Conclusion
If it wasn’t obvious enough, I did not like Rotterdam in the slightest for being a boring and uninspiring city. I would definitely pick nearly any other city in Europe over Rotterdam.
We May Roam 