Saturday, May 20, 2023

Published Saturday, May 20, 2023 by with 0 comment

Rotterdam - May 2023

Spent Monday house cleaning and preparing for Madeline's arrival. Sally has been for another scan and her baby is 6 12 which us already heavier than his or her dad and the same as Madeline when she was born. On Tuesday got Eurostar to Rotterdam for our cycling trip. Good journey with no hassle. We were staying in the same hotel as Tom and Sally a few months ago. 
Its got swingsIts just opposite the  cruise terminal where they get some pretty big ships.The picture also gives an indication of the wakey architecture round here.
Did a walk in the evening and sussed out some bikes for hire from the hotel. Had a beer in a place Tom had recommended, good pizzas in the Happy Italian followed by a beer in the Food Hallen. On Wednesday we did a ride out along the Rhine to Hoek van Holland and back via Delft. It was a bit tricky navigating out of town but well worth it when we got down to the river.

They were getting ready for some sort of festival on the beach.


The centre of Delft was very picturesque with a slight lean on the church tower.

Had a couple of tasty local beers in a bar near the church and had a pleasant ride back a lot of which was along canals. It was gone 8 when we got back so this time had pasta at the Happy Italian. Rounded off with a beer in the Food Hallen. It was hard to say how far we'd cycled but given we were un the saddle for about 7 hours even at 7 mph that's 50 miles. On Thursday we cycled the other way along the Rhine (but not very close to it) until we reached a ferry over to a nature reserve.
We had discovered it was a bank holiday fir ascension and lits of places seem to be shut so we stopped off at a supermarket we found open for lunch supplies that we ate by a lake. We stopped off in Dordrecht on the way back and had a beer by a harbour in the old centre. Got back quite late again and tried to find somewhere different to eat clise by but ended up in Happy Italy again. This was followed by the obligatory beer in the Food Hall. We probably did about 45 miles. We spent Friday was sight seeing on our bikes. We startes off near the hotel with the New York Hotel where people stayed before emigrating to the states.
There's also this monument about the same thingWe then followed recommendations from Lonely Planet. We started off in the museum park which had this.You can see us in this one. Were in the 7th square up left of centre. Kelvin has a white hat.
The museum we'd come to see was closed and house we'd come to see was no great shakes. We poked our noses in at a couple of other museums but you needed to pay to get in so didn't bother. Nice area though.  Next was the Rotterdam Museum which was about the bombing and  occupation in 1940 to the liberation in 1945.
Then headed off along a canal to Van Nelle Fabriek, a disused factory.It was opposite this building which is actually a prison.We then headed back into town to the market hall.Had pinchos for lunch inside. There are other interesting modern buildings around and an old church.
We then headed off back to the hotel to return the bikes and got a tram to the station. As we were only making the one relatively short trip the conductor didn't charge us. We had a bit of time to kill so found a beer garden and had a really nice pint in the sun. Straight forward journey back and got home just after 11pm. 

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