Rotterdam!! A chill, A trip and a long bike ride, June 19 (Day 19)

The visit to Rotterdam was by far one of the most anticipated tour of the trip. Rotterdam houses the largest port in Europe and the third largest port in the world with over 35,000 ocean vessels and 135,000 river barges flowing through the port every year, it was a great delight for me to see this firstly, because I am fascinated by the thrill of exporting and secondly, as a supply chain student it was a chance to see International Logistics in action. We set out early for this tour with the Accounting class and had to take a hour long fast train ride from the central station in Amsterdam to Rotterdam, we had been told we would navigate the whole of Rotterdam on bike’s an I wasn’t sure if I was excited to hear that or scared of getting injured because i wasn’t exactly one of the seasoned bike riders you know (started riding bicycles last summer) , but I knew I was going to brace up to the challenge and “own the moments”. We got the bikes and off we rode to the port where we were to board the ship to tour the port, and needless to say I crashed into someone before we got to the port (no injuries thou).

The tour of the port on boat was the most amazing ride I had ever had, with the ship sailing into the large expanse of water surrounded by the activities going on in the port, the weather was amazing with light breeze blowing and points of interest pointed out to us by the tour guide on a speaker on the ship and Dr V who seems to know the port like the back of his hands. We saw the ship hotel, a repair yard for the ships on the water, thousands of cranes loading and unloading to and from vessels and I even got a chance to navigate a boat simulation that was on the ship. Once the tour was over we all got off the ship and got on our bikes riding to the Euromast, it could be compared to the Eiffel tower of Paris but was cooler and less known (at least to me), it spinning vessel took us to the top of the Euromast giving us a panoramic view of the city and even some distant cities. We chilled at here for sometime before getting on our bikes again riding to where the Mayflower sailed from beside it was a very old windmill.

We continued our ride through the city, riding by parks, lakes and people having so much fun and enjoying life that it seemed like a living in a fantasy world on a summer weekday. As expected the other rider had to wait for me and two other ladies at a shed that had antelopes, from here we rode to a lake, had a drink and rested for a few minutes before riding back to where we rented the bikes to get our deposit.

We were on time to catch a train back to Amsterdam. It was indeed an exciting time as we relished the memories throughout dinner.