Rotterdam; Monday, 26 October, 2015

Slightly disturbed to spend part of breakfast watching the BBC London travel news on Breakfast. For some reason the hotel had the TV set to BBC One, which meant that at 8:30 in the Netherlands I was watching exactly what I would have been at home if I was getting ready for work. None the wiser for what the weather for the day in Rotterdam would be like, but fully aware that the Overground was part suspended I headed out of the hotel and in the direction of the harbour cruise quay.

Given it was a Monday and most attractions were closed I had intended on picking up a morning harbour cruise, but when I stepped off of the tram it coincided perfectly with the arrival of the waterbus up the river to the UNESCO listed Kinderdijk area. Given the weather was so nice I decided to throw the original, and very limited plan, out the window and instead hopped on the boat.

Arriving at Kinderdijk the first thing that greeted me was the tourist office offering bike rentals, so I picked up a Dutch bike and headed down into the Polder. First stop – after the ticket office – was the visitors centre to watch a short movie about the history of the Kinderdijk and the details on how all the windmills work together to pump the water out of the low lying area into the river.

From the visitors centre I cycled the kilometre or so down to the first of the museum mills and had a look around that before cycling another kilometre onto the second museum mill, which was in full and spectacular sail. Standing in the mill with the sails rattling round at top speed gives you a greater understanding of how this was not a quiet or easy job.

I cycled round a lot more of the area – an area that I wouldn’t have been able to cover if I was on foot – before heading back to the tourist information centre to drop off the bike and catch the ferry back into town.

Back at the Erasmus Bridge quay in Rotterdam I picked up a ticket for the 4pm harbour cruise with a joint entry to the Euromast so, with nearly 90 minutes to kill before the harbour tour, I headed over there to take in the views.

After taking in the views from the top of the Euromast, and taking quite a few photos I descended back down to street level and headed back to the River Harbour quay to pick up the tour.

The ferry back from the Kinderdijk had just missed the previous tour, but in the end I was quite glad it did as the 14:30 returned absolutely packed with all the outside seats full, whereas the 16:00 tour was at best 60 people across a boat with capacity for 600.

Having completed the tour I headed back into the centre of town for dinner and then, with a bloated stomach, headed back to the hotel to digest and sleep.