Vlaardingen

Started the day with a leasurely run, and a quick self-serve breakfast at the hotel. We picked up a couple bicycles from the hotel and set out for our day's adventure. Although the hotel was nice enough to provide a tour map, it felt a bit too contrived, so we threw it out the window. 🤠

J had found a museum on the history of Genever, and this took us over to town of Schiedam. The trip was not long, about 20 minutes on bicycle, but there were some good gusty head winds to overcome. Is that the virtual Dutch hill? The museum building used to be one of the many Genever distilleries, but it required a lot of repair work to bring it back to its glory. The lower level retained the original stills. It was quite fascinating to learn the history of the spirit, how it shaped the area, and how world events affected its trade. We also learnt that milling was very closely tied to the production of Genever, and a separate sister museum was near by, and part of the entry fee! Strangely, no samples as part of the tour 😕
https://www.jenevermuseum.nl/

Once we finished reading about the spirited history of the area, we stopped by the windmill museum. It was quite fascinating to find out these mills were built extra tall to rise above the buildings. There used to be 20 mills (now only 7), and they were dedicated to milling grains only for the production of Genever! They had run 24 hours a day, as did many aspects of the genever industry. The mechanisms are primarily wood, with a few metal parts, and the top of the windmill can rotate 360 degrees on rollers to follow the wind. The resident Miller has been working in windmills for 45 years, and very passionate in thier operation.
https://www.jenevermuseum.nl/museummolen.html

We headed back along the route we rode earlier, but ducked in to Lloydkwartier, where we had a late lunch by Schiecentrale in the shelter of the building as the wind was impressive. The original building used to be a power generation station that is now an eight building complex of commercial and residential sections, and has some very eccentric perspectives...
https://schiecentrale.nl/

Peddling by the Euromast, we found our way to the Maastunnel Noord Fiets- & Voetgangersingang, a pedestrian and bike route tunneled under Nieuwe Maas to the Charlois district. It felt like a trip into a movie set, see the video attached.

We followed the canal edges to the Katendretch area where the SS Rotterdam, a decommissioned Holland-America cruise ship is permanently berthed as a hotel, restaurant and event space. A local historical group had a display on in the lower deck as part of Holland-America's 150th anniversary. We were lucky as it was only on exhibit for two weeks. They had gathered decades of private memorabilia to showcase.

The final segment of our bike loop tour took us across Erasmus bridge and around to Markthal. Markthal is a very impressive open building with closed glass ends and many vendor stalls, similar to Grandville island market. We caught a glimpse of the unique Kunstkubus building (yellow cube building).

The varied architectural elements around Rotterdam are very unique, but not all eye catching in a good way, nor are some practical. Atleast your eyes won't get bored of the many juxtapositions of old and new!

With the weather looking more and more dreary, decided to return the bicycles, and head out for a hearty dinner. A found a nearby Argentinean Steakhouse, but they were full, so we enjoyed Japanese Ramen and currey instead.Read more