Rotterdam & surrounds

26 - 29 June

I took a train to Rotterdam, where my great uncle & auntie Kees and Trees live. Again the Dutch trains were amazingly efficient and on-time and I got to the metro station to meet Trees right on schedule. Kees and Trees were very hospitable to me for the three nights I stayed with them, with some lovely home-cooked meals and took me around to see the sights. I felt very much at home.

They live in an area called Rhoon, just out of central Rotterdam. On my first night I went for a bike ride with Trees around the area - of course biking around is very easy every in the Netherlands. Trees showed me the house my great-grandparents, Oma and Opa Scheffers, lived in for a long time, which was nice to see.

The next day, Kees and I headed out to see the massive Rotterdam port, Maasvlakte, the largest port in Europe. The cranes and containers seemingly continue on forever - it makes a mockery of the 5 or 6 port cranes back home in Wellington. They're currently undergoing a massive expansion of reclaimed land, making the Netherlands 20 km² larger, and had a really interesting exhibition place about the reclaiming process - involving sand dredgers and sprayers, which I found fascinating from a Civil Engineering perspective.

We then went down to Neeltje Jans, a man-made island with a bit of a touristy but interesting amusement park type place at the largest of the storm surge barriers. There was an good 30 min film on the construction of the barriers, and a good exhibition about the history behind them - why they were built (as a response to the massive flooding of 1953), the design (gates able to be shut rather than complete blocking off of the area, for environmental reasons), etc. The gates eventually built are massive constructions, able to be closed in about an hour with warning of a storm surge above 3 m.

One of the massive gates at the Oosterscheldekering storm surge barriers

The entrance to Rotterdam port with two massive gate structures able to close off the river

After another evening of Scheffers hospitality, we headed the next day to Den Haag (or The Hague), the Dutch seat of parliament and royal residence (but not the official capital, which is Amsterdam). Den Haag is also a major centre for the UN with the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice.

We walked through the Binnenhof (the Dutch parliament) and past the royal palace. The former Dutch queen abdicated earlier in the year so there were still remnants of the celebrations for the new king, Willem Alexander I.

Kees and Trees' son-in-law, Rob, works in Den Haag so we met up with him for lunch in the main square, where he said he's often seen Dutch politicians having lunch or a coffee. The weather wasn't that great - it seemed to be a bit of a constant theme right through my time in the Netherlands unfortunately - but it was still enjoyable. After lunch we went past the UN Peace Palace before heading back to Rotterdam.

Binnenhof in Den Haag

With Kees & Trees in Den Haag's main square

UN Peace Palace

My last day, Kees and I headed into central Rotterdam itself for the first time. Rotterdam hasn't got a lot of major landmarks - it seemed a lot more modern than central Amsterdam, for example, which I believe is mainly due to the damage suffered during the German invasion of World War II. However we did get to see a small part of the massive port, including some truly huge dry docks and endless rows of containers and cranes. Of course there's also lots of provisions for larger boats to get past bridges...

A major central-Rotterdam bridge up to let a boat through

On the Spido boat in Rotterdam harbour, with the Rotterdam cruise ship and the Dutch (not French!) flag

My Oma and her family used to live in Rotterdam, and my great-grandfather, Opa Scheffers, used to have a cafe business in the central city. After spending some time in labour camps in Germany during the war, he returned to Rotterdam and set up a restaurant in a new (post-war) mall in the central city, the Lijnbaan, which is still the hub of Rotterdam's shopping area today. Kees showed me where the restaurant used to be - the business was long ago sold but was very profitable for many years. It was quite neat to see where it all happened!

The last sight we went past was the central city's main church, the Laurenskerk, and it was very impressive - almost fully reconstructed after the bombings during the war. I couldn't help taking a few photos inside...

Candles in front of a window inside the Laurenskerk

What an organ!

Then it was back to Made for one last night. Trees very kindly drove me back there, and once again I have to be very grateful for the lovely hospitality I got from both Kees and Trees, as well as from Tante Cock in Made. But after staying the night it was off to Belgium in the morning. It was goodbye to family and time to meet up with some more of the friends I'd made in South America!