Rotown, Roffa, Rotjeknor

Another weekend and another destination. This time to some places not been before, starting with Rotterdam on the first day, and moving to The Hague, Delft and Kinderdijk on the following day. Considering how easy was to come here on this occasion where the night before I flew into Dusseldorf and the following morning drove to Rotterdam. In around 2 hours we were there and ready to start with the sightseeing after leaving our staff at the hotel and so the car behind. Definitely there is no need at all for a car in the city since distances are not big and the city centre very compact with friendly walking distances.

Your first impressions will be of a very modern city with extremely well designed sky-rises. The forms, colours, shapes and heights; this is something unique to The Netherlands and specially to Rotterdam where there are many already built and many others on the way. Construction is quite frenetic everywhere but in few years time the skyline will become one of the most impressive in Europe, not for the height itself but for the incredible collection of buildings, some of which from world renown architects.

So why is that it is possible to build that much, so fast and without obvious restrictions? Well, the city was almost entirely razed to the ground during the WWII raids, therefore, much of what was built in replacement to what once stood to accommodate the population fast and cheap did not have any value aesthetically talking. Slowly, those ugly buildings are being demolished and replaced for the post-modern ones you get to see today. (more…)