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Lots of cyclists… this must be Holland.
But wait… this is not typical for the Netherlands.
Wide boulevards… tall buildings…
Welcome to Rotterdam.
Rotterdam is the second largest city in the Netherlands.
It has a population of 600,000
while the “Rotterdam City Region” has 1.2 million.
Rotterdam is not an average Dutch city.
It completely lost its historic city center
when that was leveled by Nazi bombs in May 1940.
The city had to be completely rebuilt.
The scale of the streets is remarkable for the Netherlands.
Wide city boulevards right through the center.
Possibly because of this, the rate of cycling in Rotterdam is below average.
Although the figure is rising, barely 25% of all journeys are made by bicycle.
This would be very high in any other country,
but for the Netherlands it is low.
The city has the tallest high rises of the country.
This was possible because the city had to be rebuilt.
But even before the bombing, Rotterdam already had Europe’s first
and highest ‘skyscraper’ when in 1898 the “Witte Huis” (White House)
at 43 meters tall, was finished.
It is one of the very few buildings to survive the war.
The world’s first pedestrianized shopping street was Rotterdam’s Lijnbaan in 1953.
An example later followed by numerous car-free shopping streets around the world.
The port of Rotterdam is the largest port in Europe.
Until 2004 it was even the busiest port in the world,
but it had to give up that position to Shanghai.
Rotterdam’s Maastunnel opened early 1942 during World War II.
The actual tunnel is 585 meters long
and while motorized traffic has long entrance roads
the separate bicycle tunnel is accessed by rather steep escalators.
This was the first traffic tunnel under a river in the Netherlands.
More landmarks: the 1960 Euromast
and the 1996 Erasmusbridge aka The Swan.
Let’s just have a further look around the city
with the eyes of a cyclist.
"RIGHT"
"WRONG"
Maas (Meuse) River
City Hall