May 15 Monday train(s) to Rotterdam

More on this logo .. later.   It played a role on our arrival to .. Rotterdam.

Started the day with a good breakfast after both of us with our colds didn't get much sleep.   But .. hot showers and a cappuccino and black coffee helped kick-start this travel day.   We downloaded the Ghent tram app and bought the 2.50euro tickets to get to the train station knowing that the ticket kiosk was still 'out of order'.

Ghent train station, it was built in 1912 south of the old town, in preparation for the 1913 world's fair.

We joined a bunch of school children on their way to Antwerp.   They were packed into two passenger rail cars.    They were as excited as we were!    We walked from platform-2 to platform-22 to wait for our next train to Rotterdam via Breda.    But Joe got excited when the next train showed up at our stop.   Even though Jan was saying wait and pointing to the screen, Joe said 'let's go'.   Suspiciously there were many empty seats .. ahaa!   Sure enough .. Joe jumped the gun.   We got off at the next stop, Luchtbal, and caught the next train back to Antwerp.

We arrived in Rotterdam .. and into a wild celebration going on to celebrate the Feyenoord soccer (futball) club's victory yesterday in their league championship.   Our taxi driver had to drive twice the distance to get around the celebrations!

As we walked to our hotel, the celebration was also going on in the waterfront cafes.    Loud singing and fireworks!!   We checked in to this very modern, digital hotel.    Our room's lighting, blinds, air conditioning, and TV is controlled by the room's tablet.    Here's a pic of our room :

After a brief rest we ventured out to see the neighborhood.   We were glad to see that we're not far from a major tram stop.   Across from the tram stop was their Market Hall and apartment complex whose arched ceiling bears the largest artwork in the Netherlands.

We stopped inside for a lunch of .. fish & chips and shrimp & chips.

Interesting architecture was on the periphery of this area.

This is .. The Ode to Marten Toonder, an important Dutch comics artist  ..  it's a  Baroque bench where four well-known figures from the Toonder comics are enthroned: marquis De Cantecler, mayor Dickerdack, professor Sickbock and the painter Terpen Tijn. Above this towers a large obelisk, illuminated on four sides with reliefs full of symbols of philosophy, politics, economics and science. 

Rotterdam was the only city to be blitzed by the German Luftwaffe.   They had a very progressive attitude to post-war construction.   We had originally planned to do a harbor cruise to marvel at Europe's largest deep-water port .. but .. it started raining ..and.. it became colder and colder and the winds started blowing at 15-20 mph!   

Brrrr ..      do we look warm ?    This just means that we'll have to return, maybe on a cruise ship, to see this monstrous harbor and the surrounding architecture.

You're baking in the Pacific NW and we're ... freezing!    Can you believe that this will be the only picture of a church today?

This St.Lawrence Church, the only remnant of Rotterdam's medieval city center.  The first stone was laid in 1412 and the tower was started in 1449.

Another fun day!   Interesting train travels, fun people watching, watching a city celebrate their soccer championship, and wandering around being tourists.   After dinner we tested again for Covid just to be sure and we remain negative!   Yay!   Just bad colds!    Tomorrow we'll catch the tram to the train station and then the train to the Amsterdam airport.   I think I can admit that I'll be snoozing a lot on the plane and will probably be sleeping a lot when returning home.   We estimated that we walked over a hundred miles on this ambitious itinerary ... what were we thinking?   Oh, but the sights we've seen!!  We hope you've enjoyed our daily posts.

Take care,

Jan & Joe