25 Must-Visit Attractions in Rotterdam

These peculiar residential buildings were designed to resemble a forest with each unit representing a singular tree. Although most of the Cube Houses are still occupied, it is possible to experience living inside their slanted walls by visiting an onsite museum called Kijk-Kubus.

Rotterdam’s state-of-the-art market hall was unveiled in 2014 and has since become an iconic part of the city’s urban landscape. The hall’s ceiling features a gigantic artwork called Horn of Plenty and its interior houses dozens of stalls and stores.

Experiencing Rotterdam’s skyline from the Euromast is absolutely incredible as this 91m high tower looks directly onto the city’s modern centre. There’s also a restaurant and hotel inside.

Unlike most art museums, Kunsthal only presents temporary exhibitions and doesn’t actually own a permanent collection. This means that its content is constantly changing and allows the museum to focus on cutting-edge, innovative or under appreciated artwork.

The SS Rotterdam is among the finest cruise ships ever built and started off as a transatlantic ocean liner before it was converted into a recreational vessel. Today it is permanently moored in Rotterdam’s harbour and contains a hotel, several restaurants and visitor centre.

Around 50 gigantic windmills were built in Scheidam during the 17th and 18th centuries in order to provide grain for the city’s booming jenever industry. Eight of these machines have survived until the present day and are collectively recognised as the tallest windmills in the world.

This charming, historical neighbourhood was largely unharmed during World War II and features the largest concentration of pre-20th century buildings in Rotterdam. The area’s docklands are particularly stunning and still contain many buildings from the 17th century.

Rotterdam’s largest museum was established 1849 after Frans Jacob Otto Boijmans bequeathed his large art collection to the city. Since then, Boijmans has continued to update its collection and now owns many groundbreaking artworks including paintings created by Rembrandt, Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh.

The Nederlands Fotomusuem permanent collection includes many important series and images created by renowned photographers such as Ed van der Elsken, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Viviane Sassen. The museum also organises temporary exhibitions throughout the year.

Rotterdam has 3 football clubs that play in the first division of the Dutch league and contains the world famous de Kuip stadium- otherwise known as Feyenoord’s home ground. Tickets for Feyenoord matches can be bought through the team’s website and the club offers daily tours through de Kuip that allow fans access to areas that are usually closed to the public.

Rotterdam’s municipal museum collects and presents items related to city’s multi-faceted heritage. The museum currently houses over 40,000 items and regularly creates temporary exhibitions that revolve around important periods. people and places from Rotterdam’s past and present.

Kinderdijk is a small town just outside Rotterdam that was originally surrounded by marshland. To drain this area the Dutch government built an extensive system of modified windmills to pump water out of Kinderdijk’s swamps. These machines are almost 300 years old and remain operational. Today, Kinderdijk is a UNESCO heritage site and can be accessed via a bus service that stops at Rotterdam’s Zuidplein Station.

Around two years ago, several local culinary entrepreneurs decided to band together and created the Fenix Food Factory. This modern food hall is housed within a former shipping warehouse and contains many awesome initiatives, including the Kaapse Brouwers brewery.

For many years Rotterdam was the center of the Dutch club scene and in the 1990s became synonymous with gabber- a type of house music that was popularized in the Netherlands. Over time this sub-genre moved into the mainstream and helped produce several world leading venues. Rotterdam still has visible ties to the underground and continues to embrace subculture. WORM is undoubtedly the best place to discover the city’s avant-garde and regularly puts on experimental concerts. Whereas Toffler, and Factory 010 tend to stick to techno. Rotterdam also has an active gay scene that is represented at Café Strano, De Unie and Keerweer.

This stunning suspension bridge connects the northern and southern banks of the river Maas in Rotterdam’s city centre. Many Rotterdammers prefer to call the bridge de Zwan (the swan) due to its unique, sloping design.

Many of Rotterdam’s iconic buildings are actually available to rent and offer unique suites with unbelievable views. Hotel New York is probably the most famous of their number and is now a national heritage site. The Euromast also contains a small, exclusive hotel while newer buildings like the Cube Houses and Hotel nhow Rotterdam are more affordable, but equally impressive.

After this municipally funded statue was unveiled in the city, Rotterdammers almost immediately calling it ‘Buttplug Gnome’ due to the oddly shaped object grasped within its right hand. Since then the statue has become something of a local mascot and still spurs controversy.

Rotterdam’s natural history museum launched in 1927 and has continued to collect and preserve scientific artefacts ever since. Its archives feature many important natural objects including an entire Asian elephant skeleton that is known as Ramon.

Rotterdam’s Witte Huis was among the first high-rise buildings in Europe and was one of the few buildings inside the city’s centre to survive German airstrikes during World War II. The building is currently protected as a national monument and was designed according to Art Nouveau standards.

The stunning modernist villa on Rotterdam’s Museumpark contains an equally important museum that is dedicated to Dutch painter and sculpture Hendrikus Chabot. Chabot often depicted Rotterdam in his artwork and lived in the city for most of his life.

Witte de Withestraat is the cultural heart of Rotterdam. The street connects Museumpark with Rotterdam’s eastern docks and is recognized as the city’s art axis. During the 1990s hundreds of cultural initiatives sprung up on Witte de Withestraat and today it contains several esteemed galleries. TENT, Ecce, and de Aanschouw all have studios on the street and each contains large collections of contemporary art. After nightfall scores of locals flock to Witte de Withestraat to enjoy the bars and restaurants that line the street.

After the Van Nelle Factory was completed in 1931, many famous architect showered it with praise and Le Corbuiser even called it ‘the most beautiful spectacle of the modern age’. The factory is currently protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and organises tours around twice a year.

After German bombers leveled large parts of Rotterdam during World War II, the Dutch Government decided to rebuild the city according to contemporary architectural standards. Only a handful of buildings survived these attacks and today the city’s skyline is dominated by modern superstructures. These towers form a unique urban environment and Rotterdam is renowned for its extraordinary architecture. Many of these landmarks are open to the public including the Euromast- a colossal observation tower that overlooks Rotterdam’s commercial center.

Diergaarde Blijdorp has cared for an enormous menagerie of animals for over 150 years and is among the oldest zoos in the Netherlands. There are hundreds of rare, endangered and exotic critters inside from every corner of the globe.

Although most of Rotterdam’s harbor was destroyed by German airstrikes, a small section of its waterfront was left unscathed by the war. This dockland is called Delfshaven and was originally built in 1389. Unsurprisingly, this ancient port is steeped in history and was an important trading post for most of its existence. The center of Delfshaven is carefully preserved and contains several beautiful canals, distilleries and an old VOC building.

There are thousands of scale-models of Rotterdam and its surrounding locales inside this charming indoor theme park. The miniature world is currently expanding and will soon include an entire section dedicated to England and Scotland.