NETHERLANDS - Not a Normal Dutch City

If you are looking for everything that is traditionally Dutch from gabled houses to canals with twee bridges then Rotterdam is not going to deliver. Europe's largest port at the mouth of the rivers Rhine and Maas (Meuse) was devastated during the Second World War and is therefore a very modern creation with some amazing and sometimes wacky architecture.

My hotel is in the Blaak district which is home to the Cube Houses. 

There are 38, they were designed by architect Piet Blom, constructed in 1984 and are meant to represent tree houses. One of them is open to the public and inside there is a surprisingly large amount of living space arranged over three floors although the stairs are quite steep.

Nearby is my favourite building the Market Hall opened in 2014. What is so nice about it, is that whilst the middle part is a huge space devoted to food outlets the windows around the outside all belong to apartments. It is this mix of residential and commercial space which makes the city planning here work.

This is the Erasmus Bridge and the De Rotterdam building - you can see the weather has been a bit overcast today.

And from beside the bridge you can take a boat trip around part of the harbour. 

One building in the port that caught my attention was the European Juice Terminal. Apparently concentrated fruit juice is shipped around the world just like oil and Rotterdam has a purpose built terminal to store and handle orange juice imports from Brazil.

There is no need to panic about supplies post BREXIT either - Google tells me that the UK has it's very own juice terminal at Avonmouth.