Rotterdam was heavily damaged by bombs in WWII and was rebuilt as a vibrant, modern city. The architecture is great fun! The Cube houses are apartments that, while visually stimulating, were not well-planned in terms of community access, etc. Stairs leading into individual apartments are narrow, causing difficulty bringing in groceries, for example. Access to the community is through only one entrance, and the apartments themselves have awkward angles, as you can imagine from the photographs. The building with orange pipes is the library; the arched building is a market hall with apartments, even penthouses sharing the building. Both the front and back are glass, and there are huge murals above the market/food court inside. And what variety! We tried several things including frites with peanut sauce and mayonnaise, sausages with mayo and mustard, coconut macaroons, spices, cheese (of course!), a lovely cannoli… Remember that their mayonnaise is different from ours; I cannot imagine ours on those frites, for example. The ‘flying saucer’ shape is a transportation hub.

Rotterdam is a huge port, used to be the largest in the world, but lost its position to Shanghai and another Asian city.