The convenience of being in a small country is the facility of moving around within a couple of hours. Cities are close enough and allow us to explore the surrounds whilst we bring joy to ourselves facing new landscapes and fresh environments. In the Netherlands this proves to be right. Plus, we can get it all: beaches, hills, forests, urban life, medieval villages, and much more.
A few months before my first visit to Rotterdam (2015), an arquitectonic landmark in the city had just opened. It was MarktHalle. An exciting discovery especially due to its purpose: besides its impressive building housing two hundred apartments, it is also a vibrant food market. It is the largest covered market in Holland.
After having visited Holland for a while, it has become unthinkable, for me, to go anywhere without a bike. In Rotterdam a bike was essential to tour important corners of the city – that weren’t close to each other – and a must-see experience that was crossing the important Erasmusbrug bridge by bike. It is a beautiful bridge that connects both sides of the city.
Rotterdam has one of the biggest ports in the world and this explains its dynamism and the flow of different cultures and immigrants. It is, indeed, where I most saw foreigners, – more than in Amsterdam – settling themselves, either because of work (expatriates) or nations that for one reason or another grasped the opportunity that a big city offers.
It was love at first sight. It has a very peculiar charm, with a countryside feeling, but full of pomp like a big city. It is difficult to explain what delighted me the most in this city that may be considered one of the most important ones in Holland, together with Amsterdam and Rotterdam.
I have always been questioned about my obsessive love for the Netherlands, and I still find myself searching for the most different explanations for something that seems particularly obvious to me, but for many - if not most – believe that I'm just being eccentric.
I will hardly insist on anyone visiting a museum. But when in Rotterdam, if I must suggest some of the most must-see places in one’s life is the Boijmans Van Beunigen. Its qualitites are countless. It has, altogether, works of art made by Rembrandt, Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Magritte, Salvador Dalí and so on.