Sailing to Kinderdijk from Rotterdam

November's weather might be gloomy but did not discourage us to explore both Rotterdam and Kinderdijk in a day trip. Technically, all important cities in Netherlands is around 2 to 3 hours from Enschede so we decided not only to go to Rotterdam but also Kinderdijk. On the way to Rotterdam, we also passed by the famous cheese city Gouda by train. It might be interesting to really visit Gouda someday. Rotterdam is a modern city compared to other Dutch cities I have visited so far clearly seen from its modern buildings which has lots of headquarter offices of world's giant companies. 

Markthal

Getting out from the main train station of Rotterdam Centraal will be this view of skyscrappers and a nice point of the trains station building itself which looked like more like an entrance to a stadium. We changed train to Rotterdam de Blaak to make it nearer to the Markthal, our first stop to eat. Markthal is only a few steps from that station and it also had traditional weekend markets in front of it. The building itself is so unique because of its half-circle shape and it made of glass from the exterior. You could already see Christmas decorationa and lights from the bridge leading to the entrance. At the top of the building also are the residences and offices place, crazy indeed. At the ceiling you could see the beautiful colorful work of Arno Coenen paintings called Horn of Plenty.

You could basically found food from around the world here! From Portugal, Egypt, India, Indonesia and Dutch itself, the stall was bubbling with delicious smell and interesting looks. I chose a stall which provide lots of ready food consisted of rice, noodles, grills, pasta etc. and ordered noodle with giant big pork for 10 eur. Quite pricey but it was good anyway. My friends bought food from the Punjabi stall and cried because of its really original taste made by real Punjab people. I was planning also to buy small desserts but there was no space left in my belly. It was more like a modern mall market instead of a traditional one like you saw in my previous post about Budapest Market Hall for example. In the ground floor they even had the souvenir shop and Albert Heijn.

Cube House 

Just 5-minute walk from the market, we could see this unique building constructed by 45-degree-tilted yellow cubes serves as appartments. This Cube House also had museum where you could see what inside a demo room, but I was not really interested. It felt like you are living in a upside-down world of a bee hive. They also arranged the dolls or decorations near the window upside-down to give the real sensation of it. It was impressive but I still do not want to live there anyway. Living as an urban roof, it is! 

We then walked on the direction of Erasmus Bridge or Erasmurbrug to find our Waterbus to Kinderdijk. We bought the ticket of the waterbus online which cost 16.50 euro covering return waterbus tickets, Kinderdijk entrance ticket and entrance to all museums inside the Kinderdijk. In front of the port there was also a nice souvenir shop for you to wait for the boat to come. The view along the bridge was so beautiful with all the buildings and the flags from all over the world. 

Kinderdijk

The first waterbus was so enormous and like a spaceship. So for you who are a bit afraid of water, this could be a nice option. People even brought their bicycles and parked on the boat. This waterbus is integrated as the city transportation and could also be paid by OV chipkaart. However, we needed to change to smaller boat after two stops from Erasmusbrug. This small boat has only limited interior seats so we just stayed at the exterior and tried to enjoy the view which was a bit foggy, to be honest. Beware of the cold during the boat trip! It took us 37 minutes from Erasmusbrug to Kinderdijk. 

Once you arrived at the port, there was this nice souvenir shop also selling stuff from Amsterdam like Van Gogh's souvenirs and they also sell hot drinks. We enjoyed some cups of hot chocolate and coffee to warm ourselves before exploring the place. You could also rent a bicycle and I do not think it was a bad idea actually. It turned out to be a nice place to cycle. The shop has this special dutch wooden shoes replica in which people can take photo with. 

The ticket office of Kinderdijk was also surprisingly modern and nice. They also had souvenirs and super cozy café with the view of the windmills. We walked directly along with the path. You could also choose to go from one point to another by renting a boat. To be honest, the view was amazing because the windmills here in Kinderdijk are still preserved as their original forms unlike in other cities that has been polished or so. They also have this tiny riverbank with ducks and thatches to accompany your stroll. Meaning as children dike, this place which was recognized as UNESCO World's Heritage remained unflooded when there was a big flood in the 1400s. People believed that during the flood they saw this floating cradle with a baby inside which stayed safe and dry and therefore the folktale remains to be told. 

The first museum was inside the old windmill from the year of 1700s. We went inside and it was used to be the house of a family. It was interesting to know people did actually live there and the stairs were so sharp by the way. This house inside the windmill has 3 floors and you could still see the original kid bedrooms and photos of the family. They also play the documentary film of Kinderdijk in one of the part of the house. Maybe if it was more crowded there would be also visiting quota with time. Behind this windmill was also a nice view of green field and other windmills. We were lucky that all of the sudden, the sun shone for the sunset! It was indeed a beautiful sunset experience in Kinderdijk. We walked until the end of the path which is a white bridge where you could see a series of windmills and beautiful local boats rowing between them. We were not well prepared that we did not even know that the last waterbus back to Rotterdam was at 4 pm, we were lucky we did not miss it. 

As we arrived back in Erasmusburg we enjoyed the view of the city at night with all the lights on even though technically it was still at 5 PM. I personally think that the all-included ticket of 16.50 to Kinderdijk was really worth the place! The bridge looked nice with its red lights and there was actually another San Fransisco-ish bridge just beforre Erasmusburg which I personally think is more interesting. We took a long walk between the international flags and tried to comment and figure out which country was which. I need to leave the guys to catch my train to Delft. They had their dinner back in the Markthal. Overall, Rotterdam is nice if you also visit Kinderdijk. We did not explore the main city center part so maybe next time! 

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