Day 3 Sept 6 - Rotterdam, Netherlands

We were a little disappointed this morning. We had original signed up for a tour to Amsterdam today. Unfortunately, with the delay in boarding yesterday we were late arriving in Rotterdam and all of the Amsterdam tours were cancelled. The situation caused quite a stir at the Purser's Desk. Everyone was mad about Amsterdam and desperately trying to get alternative tours. Things turned out all right for us in the end. We were able to join a tour for Rotterdam. It was called Rotterdam by Land & Sea. The tour included a panoramic guided tour of the city sites followed by a tour of the world's largest port from the water. (that was from the tour order form)
Here are some pictures as we pulled into port.

Windmills - definitely a sign that we are entering the Netherlands

This bridge is nicknamed the "Swan"

As we got closer to the docks we saw that they were having a festival or something. We later found out that is was their Harbor Day celebration.

It was kind of cool to have everyone on the docks waving as we pulled up. They even had a band playing and singing sailor songs as we were waiting to get off the ship.

House Boats

This building is called the White House. It was the highest building in Europe when completed in 1898. It was also one of the few buildings to survive the 1940 bombing.

They even have the old traditional windmills still in the city.

This picture is the Euromast.

It seems to be similar to the Space Needle in Seattle. It is over 600 feet tall.

We even got to see people repelling down the building from the top.

The city of Rotterdam had some pretty unique architecture. Here are a few examples.

They call these the cube houses. Each cube is a separate residence.

Our tour guide said that the average occupant stays less than one year. I guess they get tired of not having flat walls. He also said that the top floor of the cube is the master bedroom and that the ceiling is glass so that you can see outside.

Sounded kind of cool, but how could you hang a shelf or picture?

This was the ship we went on for our tour of the port.

My mom like this one. He carried his car and boat on top of his ship.