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36 Hours

36 Hours in Rotterdam, the Netherlands

By Seth Sherwood

A view from a high-rise building through large, curving windows. Beyond the windows, a cityscape is lit up at night. A river cuts through the city, with the banks connected by a bridge.
36 Hours
Rotterdam,
the Netherlands
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Recommendations
Itinerary
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By Seth Sherwood Photographs by Ilvy Njiokiktjien
May 11, 2023

Amsterdam or Rotterdam? For sheer picturesqueness, Amsterdam is the easy winner. But what Rotterdam, the Netherlands’ second-largest city, lacks in historical edifices — much of it was bombed in World War II — it makes up for with contemporary urban cool. Long the busiest port in Europe, the multicultural city is a hub of global commerce and avant-garde architecture. (The architect and Pritzker Prize winner Rem Koolhaas, a Rotterdam native, has added his touch to the soaring skyline.) Art institutions like the Nederlands Fotomuseum and the new Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen have elevated Rotterdam into an essential European cultural stop, while food markets like the massive, futuristic Markthal and the sleek Foodhallen, which both opened over the past decade, add to a dining scene awash in experimental restaurants.

Recommendations

Key stops
  • Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen is one of the newest and most futuristic additions to Rotterdam’s excellent array of museums.
  • Euromast is a tower that offers panoramic city views from its stylish cafe.
  • Markthal, a huge food market with a futuristic arch, tempts visitors with an international smorgasbord.
  • #Wunderbar is a lounge that draws bohemian and creative types with its throwback furniture, unusual beers and eclectic cultural activities at its adjoining performance venue, the Worm.
Restaurants and bars
  • Fermin is a restaurant that gets clever with fermented, pickled and wood-fired dishes.
  • In de Keuken van Floris injects science and whimsy into its contemporary northern European cuisine.
  • Stadsbrouwerij De Pelgrim is a microbrewery to relax in after exploring the old-world Delfshaven district.
  • Bird is a bar with live music, local beer and shots of genever, a milder juniper-flavored cousin of gin.
  • Mooie Boules, a bar and recreation hall, echoes with the clinking of beer bottles toasting and metal balls colliding during pétanque (a French game a bit like Italian bocce).
Attractions
  • Wilhelminapier is a port district that wows with boxy architecture and cool exhibition spaces, notably the Nederlands Fotomuseum, a repository of top-notch Dutch photography.
  • Spido sightseeing cruises ply the waters of Rotterdam’s many channels, providing glimpses of the city’s maritime history and giant shipping industry.
Shopping
  • Lily Scarlet is a boutique that outfits shoppers in glamorous vintage garb.
  • Oudstijl showroom brims with midcentury modern Scandinavian design and other vintage furniture.
  • JensDoRecords sells vinyl albums, along with vintage stereo equipment and record players.
Where to stay
  • Room Mate Bruno occupies a former Dutch East India Company warehouse that now contains the Foodhallen food hall and 217 rooms that stylishly riff on nautical themes. Doubles from 104 euros, or about $114.
  • Hotel Not Hotel exudes zaniness, thanks to areas decorated like a giant cuckoo clock, an Italian villa and a candy-themed mansion. Some of the 33 rooms are even hidden behind bookshelves. An art gallery and a Mexican restaurant complete the offerings. Doubles from €84.
  • Boat-Hotel operates several boats moored in Rotterdam’s harbor that you can stay in. The floating apartments can accommodate two to 14 guests and start at about €362.
  • For short-term rentals, the area surrounding Witte de Withstraat — a strip of eateries and art galleries — offers easy proximity to the Museumpark, home to some of the city’s top cultural institutions. For tranquillity and history, the Delfshaven neighborhood delights visitors with many old townhouses around its photogenic harbor.
Getting around
  • Central Rotterdam is easily walkable. To reach neighborhoods that are farther afield, the city has an efficient underground metro, tram network, bus system and water-taxi service. The city is also well equipped for cycling. Transportation information can be found at en.rotterdam.info.

Itinerary

Friday

People in exercise wear stand in pairs on a neatly mown lawn in a park, holding hands. Some are in crouching positions. Behind them are trees, and a concrete tower with a circular viewing room and a tall mast.
3 p.m. Climb the mast
Wave hello to Rotterdam by heading to Parkhaven harbor and taking the elevator up Euromast, a thin, cylindrical tower that pokes 607 feet into the air, making it the city’s second-tallest building (admission is €12.50). Inaugurated in 1960 to coincide with Floriade, an international horticultural and garden exposition held in Rotterdam that year, the structure features a platform at about 360 feet offering panoramic views from its circular terrace. You’ll also find a restaurant-cafe where you can sit in an S-shaped Verner Panton chair, indulge Rotterdam’s highest afternoon tea (€22.50) and gaze at the expanse of office towers, suspension bridges and shipping lanes.
People in exercise wear stand in pairs on a neatly mown lawn in a park, holding hands. Some are in crouching positions. Behind them are trees, and a concrete tower with a circular viewing room and a tall mast.
5 p.m. Surf the channels
Tens of thousands of container ships pass through the twisting waterways and sprawling commercial harbors of Rotterdam every year, loading and unloading oil, clothing, fruit juice and a gazillion other goods. You get a front-row view of international trade from the glassy and modern Spido sightseeing boats. Cruising through Rotterdam’s water channels on the 75-minute tour, you pass tugboats, freighters and container ships, and wend among shipyards, dry docks and towering cargo cranes. You’ll glimpse more photogenic spots, too, like the attractive new parks and townhouses of Katendrecht (a red-light district until the 1980s) and the immense white SS Rotterdam — a retired 1950s cruise ship that now contains a hotel, bars and restaurants. Adult tickets, €16.75.
Diners in a restaurant across from each other at small wooden tables. On the wall is a wooden shelf displaying jars of preserves. There is a dark green plant in a corner, behind the diners.
7 p.m. Go big on zero-waste
Sour is power at Fermin, a stripped-down new restaurant in the Oude Noorden neighborhood. Within the open kitchen, chefs are busy fermenting and pickling, and almost no part of the animal or vegetable goes to waste. You might find dishes like Dutch mussels and roasted pumpkin pulp (the stuff you usually scoop out) in a classic French butter sauce that is mixed with fermented cabbage juice, or a tartare of yellow beetroot with pickled blueberries in a twice-fermented miso cream, topped with colorful edible flowers. Natural wines and kombucha cocktails round out the pleasingly acrid offerings. Tasting menus start from €48 per person, without drinks.
Diners in a restaurant across from each other at small wooden tables. On the wall is a wooden shelf displaying jars of preserves. There is a dark green plant in a corner, behind the diners.
10 p.m. Go underground
You have been warned: “Drinking will lead to lasciviousness,” read the tasting notes for the Rotterdam-brewed Dubbel Wit Zomerfit beer (€6) at #Wunderbar, a bar filled with vintage furniture and alternative art along the city’s hopping nightlife strip, Witte de Withstraat. Part of an indie cultural center called the Worm — whose programming includes live bands, experimental films and improv nights — the bohemian basement lounge also serves a high-alcohol beer made with yeast for Japanese sake (Kaishaku, €8.40); an Ethiopian pilsner (Addis Ababa Habesha Cold Gold, €4.20); and other far-flung suds.
A futuristic building looms in a park that has benches, trees and green grass. The building is shiny, reflective and curves like a giant metal bowl. Trees can be seen growing on its rooftop. People mill around on the concrete path in front.
Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen has landed like a U.F.O. in Museumpark: The huge mirrored building stores more than 150,000 works of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen next door, which is closed for renovations. Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times

Saturday

Vinyl records are displayed on a wooden shelf and on walls of a shop, as seen through a window. A small, pink flamingo figure, lit up in neon, sits on the shelf.
JensDo Records Melissa Schriek for The New York Times
11 a.m. Go retro
When you want to dress up like Marilyn Monroe, decorate your home like the Danish design legend Arne Jacobsen or sing along to the throwback Belgian pop songs of Jacques Brel, hit the vintage shops along Zwaanshals, a street in the Oude Noorden neighborhood. Lily Scarlet sells evening gowns, pink cardigans, long silver gloves and glammy accessories that channel the golden age of Hollywood, while Oudstijl showcases sleek and smooth midcentury modern furniture, including cabinets and couches. For the soundtrack (and the sound system), JensDoRecords offers throwback turntables and radios, as well as racks of vinyl albums running the gamut from Nina Simone to Iron Maiden.
Vinyl records are displayed on a wooden shelf and on walls of a shop, as seen through a window. A small, pink flamingo figure, lit up in neon, sits on the shelf.
JensDo Records Melissa Schriek for The New York Times
1 p.m. Test the market
Chinese dumplings, Japanese ramen, halal hot wings: The many global flavors of Rotterdam fill the soaring, horseshoe-shaped Markthal, a futuristic culinary cathedral decorated with huge images of fruits and vegetables rather than angels and saints. You might assemble an eclectic local lunch by stopping at Royal Fish (traditional Dutch herring, €3.50), or Ekmekci (a Turkish wrap of chicken in warm flatbread and garlic sauce, €7.50). Through the market’s multistory glass facade, you can admire nearby 1970s architectural masterworks like the boxy Cube Houses, which suggest a row of tumbling dice.
The interior of a restaurant, with a long bar lined with empty stools. At the end of the restaurant, a few diners are seated near tall, bright windows. A chandelier hangs from the ceiling.
Hotel New York Melissa Schriek for The New York Times
3 p.m. Navigate the docklands
The Wilhelminapier docklands have sprouted with soaring skyscrapers by celebrated architects, enlivening the city skyline with experimental new forms. In addition to Maastoren, the nation’s second-tallest building, the strip includes the leaning facade of the KPN Telecom Office Tower, by the architect Renzo Piano; the tall piles of stacked gray boxes known as De Rotterdam, designed by Rem Koolhaas; and the historic Hotel New York, an early-20th-century gem. But the more discreet star is the Nederlands Fotomuseum (€14 admission). Hushed and dark, the institution features a permanent exhibition of Dutch photography called the Gallery of Honour, which displays images that include John Lennon and Yoko Ono, protesting for peace in the bed of an Amsterdam hotel; and Anne Frank, smiling and bright-eyed in a haunting passport photo.
The interior of a restaurant, with a long bar lined with empty stools. At the end of the restaurant, a few diners are seated near tall, bright windows. A chandelier hangs from the ceiling.
Hotel New York Melissa Schriek for The New York Times
6 p.m. Commune with nature
In a residential area near Erasmus University, In de Keuken van Floris restaurant feels like an enchanted forest with its autumnal tones, wooden surfaces and wall covered by thick, green Icelandic moss. Offering no predetermined menu, the chef-owner Floris Versluijs whips up what he pleases from an open kitchen island outfitted with a vertical wood-fired stove and jars of pickled and fermented substances: miso, kombucha and more. The nightly concoctions might include forest vegetables and flowers in a petri dish with a gel made from tea and mushrooms, or lamb neck cooked for hours over the wood fire and served with fava-bean kimchi. Saturday’s 10-course menu is €89, without drinks.
The inside of a restaurant or a bar that is lit up with round red and green lanterns. People sit at rectangular wooden tables. Red neon signs on white columns say
Mooie Boules Melissa Schriek for The New York Times
10:30 p.m. Cross the tracks
A disused stone railway bridge next to a creepy urban underpass doesn’t sound like a wise nighttime destination, but if you follow the sounds of live music you’ll discover the welcoming confines of Bird. The restaurant-bar-concert hall is one of many lounges, eateries and boutiques that have filled the barrel-vaulted spaces below the train tracks and revived this corner of the Oude Noorden neighborhood. A shot of local genever (€4.10), with a bottle of Hertog Jan Dubbel beer (€5.90), makes a fully Dutch drinking duo. Then follow the noise of clanging metal balls to Mooie Boules, five minutes away on foot. Part hipster bar, part indie food court, part recreation center, the vast, lofty expanse echoes with the din of locals drinking Rotterdam’s own Kaapse Karel pale ale (€4.90) and playing pétanque on a gravel court.
The inside of a restaurant or a bar that is lit up with round red and green lanterns. People sit at rectangular wooden tables. Red neon signs on white columns say
Mooie Boules Melissa Schriek for The New York Times
A view over a city on a cloudy day. Tufts of treetops poke through the spaces between the buildings. In the distance are skyscrapers.
What Rotterdam, the Netherlands’ second-largest city, lacks in historical edifices — much of it was bombed in World War II — it makes up for with contemporary urban cool.

Sunday

People walk up a staircase, gazing upwards, in a glassy, futuristic-looking building. Above them, a second staircase zigs up to another level.
Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen
11 a.m. Dig the depot
Like a U.F.O., a huge mirrored teacup has landed in Museumpark, which is home to world-class exhibition spaces like Kunsthal (an art museum designed by Mr. Koolhaas), Het Nieuwe Instituut (devoted to design, architecture and digital media), and Sonneveld House (a white 1920s functionalist home with preserved period interiors). The shiny structure is Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen, the park’s new marquee attraction and exhibition space. Built to store the more than 150,000 works of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen next door (closed for renovations until at least 2029), the futuristic space greets visitors with eclectic medley art, including a Joan Miró abstraction, an Italian Baroque rendering of David and Goliath, and a Nam June Paik sculpture made of flickering televisions. The rest of the journey turns up an equally free-form mashup of artists, eras and styles: canvases by Rembrandt and Piet Mondrian; Ettore Sottsass shelving; and a room-size, Wild West-themed installation by Paul McCarthy. Along the way, windows in the walls offer glimpses into the archives, conservation studios and other workspaces. Tickets, €20.
People walk up a staircase, gazing upwards, in a glassy, futuristic-looking building. Above them, a second staircase zigs up to another level.
Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen
Small boats in a narrow canal on an overcast day. The path next to the water is cobblestoned and mossy. On the far bank are narrow houses.
Delfshaven Melissa Schriek for The New York Times
1 p.m. Drink up the past
On May 14, 1940, German aircraft bombed Rotterdam to rubble, killing hundreds and leaving tens of thousands of people homeless. The picturesque harborside neighborhood of Delfshaven was spared, and today the gabled townhouses, venerable windmill and 15th-century church, Pelgrimvaderskerk, offer a rare glimpse of the area’s past. Among the art galleries and artisans’ studios, the rustic Stadsbrouwerij De Pelgrim microbrewery serves a caramel-accented Mayflower Tripel (€4.90) that honors another famous local event: the departure of the English Pilgrims, who had sought refuge in the Netherlands, in the summer of 1620. From Delfshaven they went to Southampton, England — where they acquired the Mayflower — and set sail for the New World in the fall.
Small boats in a narrow canal on an overcast day. The path next to the water is cobblestoned and mossy. On the far bank are narrow houses.
Delfshaven Melissa Schriek for The New York Times