travelogue: holland, part 2 / 4 rotterdam

hello rotterdam, so nice to meet you!

rotterdam is nothing like the rest of holland... destroyed during world war two, this city rebuilt itself from scratch... modern building after modern building. 

we ate our way through markthall with its horn of plenty mural on the ceiling... healthy juices, dried pineapple, stropwaffle, and kai tried dragon's breath. markthall is designed by mvrdv.

we visited the cube houses, and paid our 2.50 euros to take a peek inside one. it's a bit claustophobic for me despite the three levels reached by a narrow staircase. the lower level is the living room, the middle level is used for sleeping adn bathing and the third level is a flexible space. the cube houses were designed in the 70s by architect piet blom.

the erasmus bridge is best seen from the water to appreciate it's nickname 'the swan'. and also to take in the view of other modern buildings. it does not feel like you are in holland!

and finally, the luchtsingel bridge, a pedestrain walkway connecting north and south rotterdam.

witte de withstraat if full of restaurants, bars, shops, grafitti, and galleries. our days always start at a coffee house so we made our way to hopper coffee where my boys ate a very typical dutch breakfast... bread and cheese and toasties while i settled for eggs with avocado. stefan loved that they hand pulled the coffee :) it was on this street that we had ice cream too, much needed on a very hot 30 plus degree kind of day. 

on pannekoekstraat, we needed a break from the sun to rehydrate... i loved my 'jenny' gin cocktail. nearby, we visited cute independant shops such as evernow selling houseplants and homewares and lou-la with its feminine clothing and jewlery. i also really like hutspot and nen xavier.

next to our colourful bruno roommate hotel, along the pier in the kop van zuid district, there's foodhallen, a large market hall where you can taste all kinds of local and international delicacies. arriving late from haarlem, we ate dinner there and lucky us they were having a jazz fest so we listened in on some alternative jazz.

katendrecht is a foodie haven on a small island with tons of restaurants. we ate at fenix food factory, a waterfront warehouse turned street food market and brewery on the waterfront. our indonesian tacos were to die for! and the veggie bitterbollen, with a mushroom ragu, were eye rolling good.

we had such a great day, albeit very hot, that we asked the hotel if they had availability for a second night, they didn't so we moved on to kinderdijk... which is up next.