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Rotterdam


welshbairn

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Booked a wee break at the end of the month, staying near the Central Railway station. Is there an area with the best cafes, bars etc? Not that bothered about museums etc unless there's something seriously not to be missed. Any advice would be welcome.

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Booked a wee break at the end of the month, staying near the Central Railway station. Is there an area with the best cafes, bars etc? Not that bothered about museums etc unless there's something seriously not to be missed. Any advice would be welcome.

I'm in Rotterdam just now. Can't say I've fallen in love with the place, I think when it got flattened in WW2 and they were looking for inspiration for the rebuild they chose Motherwell.

I've found that the areas west of Centraal are quite nice and lively as well, whereas east of it is a bit of a toilet. I don't know what area it's called, but the street I walked down after three days here and thought "hold on, this is actually quite nice" was Nieuwe Binnenweg. The centre where all the shops are seem busy enough (especially today with the football but that won't always be the case), but what stands out about most of the city is how quiet the streets are.

Some of the buildings are stinking to look at, here's the best example I saw right in the centre:

014559300_1353620013.jpg

I don't want to put you off your trip* as the city has more going for it than I first encountered, just don't expert to find beautiful sights.

*Unless your place near the station is Hostel De Mafkees, in which I am trying to put you off. Turn around whilst you can and don't do it.

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Reading that back I sound like a right horrible b*****d, putting a downer of someone's trip before they even get there. I haven't done so much of this as when I was in Amsterdam, but I hear Rotterdam has cracking night life. I'm sure you'll have a belter if that's true.

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Not at all, cheers, was a bit worried that it was so awful that nobody would reply. I've been to Holland a few times, worked in Amsterdam, visited the Hague and Utrecht. I'm just staying for two nights, it's only half an hour or so from Schipol Airport, which is the only European airport with direct flights to Inverness, and tobacco is comparatively cheap. Hoping my hotel, Hotel One, is better than your place. Feel like a wander round somewhere industrial, canals and pretty scenery can get boring.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just got back, had a great time. The architecture is stunning, and there were great bars with outside tellys for the World Cup. Very cosmopolitan, I was in a Vietnamese area and the food was scrumptious. The boat trip around the docks is worth doing, just takes an hour and a quarter, there's a bar on board, and you get an idea why the Dutch are wealthy, the scale of trade is staggering. Makes Liverpool docks look like a duck pond.

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