A Beautiful Day in Rotterdam 3/18

Here it is the 26th of March and I'm just getting to the rest of last week. I'm hoping to get caught up by the weekend. I'll just go in order. Last week was a dry, near perfect weather week, very unlike this week where we're having more typical maart buien (March short periods of rain regen, snow sneeuw, or hail hagel). There are infrequent periods where the sun peaks through, though not today. It is very wet here. I'm so glad I didn't have to go anywhere this week, just stay home except for a daily walk, and was able to go to 3 other cities and enjoy them last week.

Wednesday March 18th was a beautiful day in Rotterdam so I went for a long walk and would like to take you on it with me. I'll start with heading over the Erasmusburg. I have so many pictures of this bridge because about every time I look at it, it looks beautiful. I realized the need to organize my photos so I don't keep taking them but days like this when the sky is such a beautiful blue...I have to have them to remember on rainy weeks like this, that the blue sky is under all those clouds and will return one day.

Something I enjoy is watching the boats. There are so many different one's here than I've seen before. Walking over the bridge is usually a time to see some of the boats as they are trasporting sand or other goods to another place. They were too far away this time, another time I'll cover the various ships here.

The bridge, opened in 1996, provides one of the inclines in Rotterdam as it makes it's way over De Nieuwe Maas. It also provides a link from Rotterdam Centrum to the south of Rotterdam. There is also the Maas Tunnel that goes under the water. The Erasmusburg has allowed the centrum to extend into the south, with the main tax office, IRS, and court house/Federal building (I'll call it because it's more than a court house.) being on the south side of the bridge.

As you walk over the bridge you'll see the Euromast to the west

and the Willemsburg to the east.

On the northeast side is Leuve Hoofd and some of Rotterdam's beautiful architecture.

Looking back to the southeast side you can see the other side of the Maastoren, the tallest building being built. Oh how we would love to live high up with windows on this side.

Once over the bridge I was in time to see the Nieuwe Leuveburg open.

Then look at this partially half round building, half round buildings are somewhat common around here.

This is the play structure outside the Maritime Museum that is perfect for those Navy Child Development Centers I worked at and with. Vriendschap II (Friendship II)

This is the sculpture behind the play structure, De Verwoeste Stad. The Destroyed City was erected in memory of the destruction that occured in Rotterdam between 1940-1945 and World War 2.

You can see two church steeples. Laurenskerk was built between 1449 and 1525 and survived the war bombings. Het Steiger (The Landing) is a Sint Dominicus City Kerk and yes, "City" is how it's spelled, funny because the rest is all Nederlands so it's St. Dominic's City Church. I call the church of the animals because there are animals carved out on the steeple and on their front door.

Then I crossed Coolsingel and walked down to Lijnbaan where I saw these unusual people.

College aged gals dressed in flowered dresses with the pink jackets passing out something to young gals.


And this older man who goes around on his scout mobile promoting different things. Like he was promoting and having people sign a petition, which you do not see here, to give free public transportation to 65+er's, which Rotterdam did. I have no idea what he was spouting off on this plein, it's so hard to understand when it's through something like a megaphone. You don't see people doing something like this too often. Though a couple Saturday's ago when I was down there there was a church doing street evangelism, signing on one corner, shouting out the Gospel

on another.

What you've seen on my walk today are just tidbits and one of the reasons I enjoy just walking around in cities. There always seems to be something new, different, or what I like to call, a surprise sculpture, creation, or building, around at least one corner. I look forward to sharing more of my adventures with you.