Today we journeyed to the city of Rotterdam. Located an 18 minute train ride south east from Delft, Rotterdam has the largest ship port in all of Europe.
Upon arrival in Rotterdam, we made our way to the Rotterdam HogueSchool where we listened to lectures from two of the city planners. First, we were presented with the history of the city of Rotterdam and how the canals in the area really helped shape communities way back in the day as they were used to transport goods. Rotterdam was located in the best area for ships, so they have become a very wealthy city from their port. The history of Rotterdam is really fantastic, for example, they were the first city in the world to have a completely car free shopping area. I really got the feeling that throughout the history of this city that a “just do it” engineering outlook was used. Another important thing I took away from the lectures was that they said that for projects and development, they try to make sure that the lower class can also benefit from the project/development. Because if everyone benefits and the project produces positive social effects to the surrounding area, that is truly when a project/development can be considered a success. That really spoke to me, because it often seems like a lot of projects/developments in Canada only benefit a group of people and not society as a whole. One other concept I really appreciated that the lecturers said that they were trying to implement the use of public green spaces on the top of buildings, such a sustainable way to conserve land inside a city.
After the lectures and an excellent lunch, we went for a walking tour prepared by one of the PHD students.
Our first stop was at the Maastunnel which is a tunnel that goes underwater beneath the Nieuwe Maas river/channel. It was built in 1942 and is a little more than 1 kilometre in length. It has two levels, the top level for biking and the bottom level for walking. I was really impressed with this tunnel, especially how well it still worked since it was built during WWII.
After, we went for a boat tour of the port. We only saw a small fraction of it, so I was really impressed with how large it actually is. Especially since I come from thinking that the ports of Seattle and Vancouver were large, they are not even close to being as large as the port of Rotterdam! Below are some pictures from our boat tour:
Notable things we saw during this water tour included:
- the juice storage facility
- the radar station
- the fruit terminal
- Kettle One Mill (dutch gin place)
- dry docks (for ship repair)
- the SS Rotterdam (biggest passenger steam ship in the Netherlands)
Finally, I leave you with some pictures of the amazing architecture of the city of Rotterdam. I found it to be quite unique, as each building is individual.
