Rotterdam Centre is a much smaller city than Amsterdam, and easily walkable.
Most of Rotterdam was destroyed during the war, so many of the buildings in the city are newly built and some with very interesting architecture, such as the Markthal, a market place with a colourful interior and with apartments built on top of its dome shaped building.
And the Cube Houses, both located around the train station Blaak.
The last time I was in Amsterdam was about 15 years ago. At that time I was only here for half a day and don't remember much of it.
Most people relate Amsterdam with windmills, canals, "coffee shops", bicycles, Red Light District, interesting architecture and buildings along canals.
/Buildings along canals/
I was keen to explore Zaanse Schans and Haarlem on a bicycle, while in Amsterdam.
Plotting the routes on Google, it showed it would take 3.5 hours to cycle to those 2 places and back into Amsterdam. Very doable within a day, or so I thought.
I had a late night yesterday and had slept in longer than I preferred, so by the time I was ready to get on a bike it was already 12.30pm.
Abel, whom I had met over dinner and drinks yesterday, had asked me for dinner tonight but I had already other plans fixed. So I invited Abel to join me for the bicycle trip instead, and I was so glad he did!
Abel told me that the route which Google had plotted to get to Zaanse Schans, Haarlem and back would definitely take longer than what Google had indicated. Furthermore, the route which Google provided to get to Zaanse Schans was an industrious area and not pretty at all.
Taking a scenic quick boat ride from behind the train station with my borrowed bicycle, I made my way over to the opposite side of the water where I would meet Abel.
1.5hr from Sittard (near Pieter's work place, and where I said goodbye to Pieter before continuing with my travels) and just a few stations north of Maastricht, I made a day trip and spent a few hours in Utrecht before making my way to Amsterdam.
It started snowing again today, so I had a nice white view from the window of the train, while travelling towards Utrecht.
I was going to leave my luggage in the lockers at Utrecht train station, so that I could properly explore the city.
Alas, the lockers were about an inch too slim for my fat luggage and I couldn't squeeze it into the door on both the small and largest locker size (all of which had the same door width that didn't help my situation).
It also uses a credit card with pin only system, that doesn't help me either as all my credit cards works with signature and has no pin on them.
Making my way to the Visitors Information Centre with luggage in toll, I asked the staff for some advice about the town of Utrecht and also asked if there were any other lockers nearby.
I promised them I would write a brilliant review on TripAdvisor, so I better get round to that soon!
Utrecht is a small medieval town and easily walkable. There's a beautiful canal circle in the middle of the city, with some calling it "Europe most beautiful canal city".
Located about a 40 minutes drive from Sippenaeken, we made a day trip into the city.
We entered Maastricht via one of the few fort walls that was built in the 13th century (which says a lot about how old the city is!) and walked into the town centre.
The oldest city gate (Helpoort or Hell’s Gate) in Netherlands is also located in Maastricht.
It’s also said that the Sint Serbaasbrug stone footbridge across the Meuse River is the oldest bridge in Netherlands.
I left Stefano's house at 7.45am to catch the 8.07am train to the airport, which later required switching to an airport shuttle from T2 ...
