Ships Ahoy

Luke and I walked down to Wilhelminaplein yesterday which is one of the areas around Rotterdam's harbour. In our snow gear (because it's still snowing and cold here), we walked out onto Wilhelmina Pier to take in some of the extremely interesting architecture like the raging red Luxor Theatre, KPN's 'Piano' building (this 98 metre tall office building has a front facade that tilts away from the building at an angel that matches the suspension cables of the nearby Erasmus Bridge or the Swan Bridge as I noted in an earlier post), Las Palmas (which is the Foto Museum that we both thoroughly enjoyed, especially their 'This is War!' exhibit), and Hotel New York that once used to be the headquarters of the Holland-America transatlantic shipping company is now both a kitchy hotel and restaurant. In the midst of these sites we stopped for a coffee at the Cafe Rotterdam, which is a cafe located in the Terminal Building for the Holland-America Line that although ruined during the 1940s bombing was restored to an impressive concrete structure of six shell roofs and floor to ceiling glass walls. Yet, none of this most stunning architectural feats really impressed Luke. Instead, he was impressed by the ocean liner that was docked at the harbour that was as grand as it was huge. Working cranes, men walking around in hardhats and steel toed boots occupied our conversation while we sat and sipped our strong coffees. It was like we were back in Sudbury watching 'Big Machines' on the National Geographic channel except we were getting a much more up front view. As long as we were both dazzled at something, my abilities as a tour guide remain intact!