Sandwiched in between this and my Wroclaw blog was the small issue of Wales qualifying for their first World Cup in 64 bloody years! What a time to be alive.
I said that my Wroclaw blog will be short, but this one will trump that, with only having a few hours in Rotterdam before the game. Therefore, it’s a tad photo heavy but that’s less shit you gotta read from me.
Overview
Rotterdam is the second biggest city in The Netherlands about 35 miles south of Amsterdam. It has the biggest port in Europe, which was #1 in the world until Shanghai took over the title in the early 00’s.
Getting here
There are loads of ways to get to Rotterdam, with Amsterdam Schiphol only a few miles away, so direct flights from Bristol would be the easiest. The Eurostar also services Amsterdam and apart from jumping on a tube around London is probably the most convenient method direct from the M4 corridor.
Us, however had to be different. After a National Express to London before a train to Harwich, we caught an overnight ferry to Hoek Van Holland, which literally translates to the hook of Holland.
Our beds were also here, a very quiet town that I imagine is seldom given a second look with tourists catching their ongoing transport to the bigger areas. The metro line took us straight to Rotterdam in 30 minutes or so. Our accomodation was a cute independent B&B called Hotel Kuiperduin and we had a perfect stay. They let us check in super early, breakfast was fine, and they even give us a key for the front door for our late night return.
Prices
The travel (coach, train, ferry) was ridiculously low at £179 return and general food and drink is similar to the UK. The hotel was £100 for the night, decent because a hotel in Rotterdam couldn’t be found anywhere near as cheap for some reason. Transport is obviously more efficient, and cheaper than home, a day ticket covering a vast area at €14. In Rotterdam I was paying €4 for 30cl of Heineken but couldn’t resist Strongbow in the Irish bar at £6 a pint (or £72 for 12, whatever way you look at it…).
Things to do
The general consensus was that Rotterdam doesn’t offer nearly as much tourism entertainment like it’s bigger neighbour. I was told this both before and during my trip. However, I’m not going to say this is true having only spent three hours in the city (without drinking). I did see the few things I wanted to during my stay – see below – but I’m sure there are other things to do if you had more time.
Edit: Having returned to this to update a few bits, I have realised I have tried to write about the Netherlands without mentioning windmills, cheese or flowers AT ALL. Deary me.
Itinerary – what we did.
Day one.
In short… Bus, coach, tube, train, ferry. The Stena Line ferry was really sparse with foot passengers but of course they make their money from the full capacity of lorries that boarded. The top bunk in an internal cabin was ‘an experience’ and the food was satisfactory albeit outraged at paying £3 for a bottle of water.
The ferry left at around 10pm and enjoyed a good sleep before arriving in Hoek Von Holland at 8am on day two.
Day two.
Here we go then. After disembarking the ferry we only had a 15 minute walk to our B&B through the sleepy streets.
By 9:30 we were back at the port to catch a metro directly in to Rotterdam, arriving at the Euromast at ten.
The Euromast is probably the one thing to do on your visit. The tallest building in the Netherlands. A tower with a viewpoint of 96 meters high obviously offered the best panoramic views of the city including Erasmus bridge over the New Meuse river. You can actually go further, up to 180 meters, but this was under refurbishment. I’m alright with heights but even that looked a little dizzying.
We had a quick beverage in the restaurant before heading further in to the city to collect our tickets for the game. First beer of the trip!
Perfectly located between my other to things I wanted to see, some 45 degree houses and the market, we had our tickets and completed the to do list all by midday!
The “Cube houses” are an arty design innovative thing, well known for their walls having a 45 degree angle. Why, or how practical this is, I do not know. Let’s leave that there.
The market hall opposite the funny looking houses is an imposing structure. Opened in 2014, it has a huge horseshoe facade and the largest glass-window cable structure in Europe filling in the gap.
I had a very tasty falafel wrap (for some reason I chose to be a vegetarian throughout!) in the market from one of the near 100 stalls and, whilst Pete went back to the B&B for a rest there was only one thing left to do: have a beer.
Behaving, I did have a stroll the a few shopping streets to pick up a magnet for Mum in the shadow of Rotterdam’s World Trade Centre.
Whilst sipping my first beer outside one of several kerbside restaurants, it was comforting to be tapped on the shoulder from some fellow Newport County supporters I knew a little and enjoyed a few lagers with them before inevitably crossing the road to the “fan pub” for the day Paddy Murphy’s, where it was absolutely bouncing throughout my five hours – my bank tells me 12 pints of strongbow may have enhanced my experience – before the evening game.
Hundreds of bucket hats bobbing up and down to Shakira? Very frequently. (Note: for context we’ve stolen (improved) her Waka Waka song and made it in to our World Cup song…). No photos from here but if you followed me on Instagram (@hownot2life) you would have been treated to a few videos.
The tram to the game was easier and less crowded than Wroclaw two weeks prior and I arrived at De Kuip, or the Feyenoord Stadion, well before kickoff. Thank goodness as I was so lost a helpful young lady eventually had to escort me through a sea of orange to the correct entry gate!
The stadium looked great bit in fact I thought it was really poor facilities-wise. You had to buy tokens to swap for food and drink, the beer was 0%, and for the first time ever the queue for the gents at half time was longer than the bar!!
The game itself (5th in 13 days) was one of the better ones. A valiant performance from our squad team ultimately lost to the Dutch after their 93rd minute winner, with Gareth Bale only equalising for us a minute before. Exactly the same scenario when we played the reverse fixture six days ago!
The atmosphere was very friendly. I did think the Dutch supporters were just expecting a few goals and offered little support during the game above flag waving, tragically scoring whilst their Mexican fucking wave was in its infancy. Urgh. The full allocation of Welsh fans were fantastic and it was a shame to be in a different area.
Finishing at 11pm, we had no time to waste getting one of the last metro’s out of the city, which we did successfully. Our pursuit of some late night scran however was never going to materialise but you can guess; I didn’t starve.
Day Three.
We enjoyed a simple but ample breakfast in the garden of our B&B. With a few hours to kill, we chose to have a good 30 minute walk to the nearby beach.
Whilst it was strange to be visiting a beach so close to container ships, cranes and the like, the Strand 2 beach itself was gloriously clean in the sunshine, spacious and just starting to populate.
Sadly no dip for me this time, as time was now getting on and it was time to catch our ferry (with a window in cabin = result) back to Harwich, then train to Liverpool Street, tube to Victoria, National Express to Newport and taxi to home without any major incident, getting in to bed at 3:30am.
Thanks for taking the time to read this jumble of words. Unfortunately this may be my last Wales away post for some time as I start from scratch trying to build my fan account up to a stage where I’m likely to get tickets through the correct methods. Qatar is not an option unless my numbers come out of a big glass ball on a Saturday evening soon. If anyone can help me out for Belgium away though…
How Not 2 Life 