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ROTTERDAM |
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Just beyond Delft lies ROTTERDAM , at the heart of a maze of rivers
and artificial waterways which forms the seaward outlet of the rivers
Rhine (Rijn in Dutch) and Maas. An important port as far back as the
fourteenth century, it was one of the major cities of the Dutch Republic,
and today, with the adjoining dockland area of Europoort , is the
largest port in the world. The Luftwaffe bombed the town centre to
pieces in 1940, and rebuilding has produced a sterile assembly of
concrete and glass. However, the city has its moments, not least in one
of the best and most overlooked galleries in the country, the Boymans-Van
Beuningen Museum.
Southeast of the station, the Lijnbaan was Europe's first pedestrianized
shopping precinct, completed in 1953. Beyond here lies some of the city
centre's more fanciful modern architecture, and the seventeenth-century
mansion at Korte Hoogstraat 31 that houses the Schielandshuis Museum
(Tues-Fri 10am-5pm, Sat & Sun 11am-5pm; ¬2.70), featuring displays on
the city's history. A couple of minutes south, the old city docks are
enclosed by the Boompjes, a former sea dyke that's now a major motorway
leading southwest to the Euromast , on a rather lonely park corner
beside the Nieuwe Maas, originally just a drab, grey observation
platform thrown up in 1960, but to which was later added the 185m-high
Spacetower (daily: April-Sept 10am-7/10.30pm; Oct-March 10am-5pm; ¬7),
which gives spectacular views. North of here, the Boymans-Van Beuningen
Museum , Mathenesserlaan 18-20 (Tues-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 11am-5pm; ¬5.70;
www.boijmans.rotterdam.nl ), is Rotterdam's one great attraction,
accessible from Centraal Station by tram #5 or walkable from
Eendrachtsplein metro. It's an enormous museum, with a superb collection
of work by the Surrealists Dalí, Magritte, Ernst and de Chirico. The Van
der Vorm collection on the first floor contains work by Monet, Van Gogh,
Picasso, Gauguin, Cézanne and Munch, and a series of small galleries
alongside house paintings by most of the significant artists of the
Barbizon and Hague Schools. Among the earlier canvases are several by
Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Bruegel the Elder's mysterious Tower of Babel ,
some Jan Steens, Gerrit Dou's The Quack and Rembrandt's intimate Titus
at his Desk .
If nothing in the city centre can be called exactly picturesque,
Delfshaven goes some way to make up for it. A good 45-minute walk
southwest of Centraal Station - fifteen minutes by tram #6 or #9 - it
was from here that the Pilgrims set sail for America in 1620, changing
to the more reliable Mayflower in Plymouth. Delfshaven was only
incorporated into Rotterdam in 1886 and managed to survive World War II
virtually intact. It was long a neglected area, but the town council has
recognized its tourist potential and has set about conserving and
restoring the locality. The Dubbelde Palmboom Museum , Voorhaven 12
(Tues-Fri 10am-5pm, Sat & Sun 11am-5pm; ¬2.70), once a jenever
distillery, is now a historical museum with a wide-ranging if
unexceptional collection of objects pertaining to life in the Maas
delta.
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