Hello everyone! This is the last part of my European Capitals Cruise!
The other parts of this series can be found here:
Part 1: Honfleur, France & Hamburg Germany
Part 2: Aarhus & Copenhagen Demark
Part 3: Gothenburg, Sweden & Oslo, Norway
This time we’re covering Netherlands and Belgium, so lets get into it :]
Rotterdam, and Kinderjik, Netherlands
Netherlands was a place I wanted a visit for a while! (girls just want to travel the world… It’s pretty great.) Having known people from Netherlands I was curious about the country itself. Perhaps the most iconic things from the Netherlands are the windmills, the tulips, the clogs, and more recently, the well-loved cartoon bunny “Miffy” (or “Nijntje” in Dutch).
So, in the most touristic fashion, my family and I headed over to Kinderdjik (pronounced Kinder-dike, I’m pretty sure) to see the windmills!
Kinderdijk means “Children’s Dike” and there are 19 windmills along the water. They are named for an old legend that when St. Elizabeth flooded, a baby floated peacefully nearby and survived the flood. The windmills are made of stone and serve to manage water in that area. The windmills were designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site back in 1997, as they were heavily relied on for water, steam, and electricity during events like WW2.
On the way back from Kinderdijk we found a Miffy store. I did not know about Miffy until actually coming to the Netherlands, but now that left I see Miffy everywhere. I found Miffy eyepatches and a Miffy stationary set. If you don’t know Miffy, she’s a little bunny who’s very popular in Asia because she is very cute. Miffy’s origins stem from a children’s book created by Dutch author/illustrator, Dick Bruna in 1955. Miffy’s Dutch name, Nijntje, means “little bunny.” Thought I didn’t do a whole lot there, Miffy has become super popular and you can visit the Nijntje Museum, Miffy’s Little Square, and a Miffy traffic light featuring a little Miffy icon instead of a normal pedestrian.
Out of Kinderjik and back to the heart of Rotterdam, we saw Noah’s Ark. Though we did not go inside, it was still very cool to see. I think if we hadn’t gone to the Ark Encounter in Kentucky (highly recommend it by the way! It’s really great and well done. If you’re a Christian already, I think that it can really solidify your beliefs and help to visualize everything. It really sheds some light on the specifics of Noah’s Ark like how they fed so many animals and survived in a boat for one whole year. And it wasn’t the fancy luxury cruise ship type of boat, that’s for sure!) we would have gone to this one.
We headed over to the Blaak Market, a very colourful and rounded building. I introduced my friend Ellie to popping boba because she didn’t like tapioca pearls in bubble tea. They also had stroopwaffles! Its funny that I’ve had more stroopwaffles in Canada than actually being in the Netherlands. They give them out on planes and you warm them up over your coffee or tea. So yummy when the caramel melts!
The Blaak Markt is a good place for some snacks, and thinking back on it, it has similar architecture to the ending spaceship in Interstellar. Super cool and unique with lots of paintings!
Boba in hand, we headed over to the Cube Houses! A very trippy attraction in the Netherlands, these bright yellow houses are oddly shaped so that it feels like the houses are leaning in towards you. These lovely little yellow houses were designed by the architect Piet Bloom in the 1970s-1980s. I like these houses because they put a spin on modern housing and architecture with how fun they are. However, I think that the impractical shape does pose for some wasted space and challenges with furniture. Plus, I wouldn’t love to live in such a touristy area with hundreds of people taking photos of my house…
There is a model home that you can check inside, and its about as weird as you would expect, with furniture awkwardly fitting into corners and warped walls.
Pictured above is me inside the model cube house. As you can see it’s a bit strange. Let me know if you’d like to live here or if it’s too weird for you in the comments!
That’s pretty much all that we did in Netherlands! The trip to Kinderjik took up most of our time, and we took the water shuttle/ferry. The ferry was very modern and nice! The ferry trip is only 30-40 minutes and costs 5-8 euros. The Blaak Markt and Cube houses were a nice way to end the day. Overall I had a lot of fun in Netherlands!
Bruges, Belgium
The city itself, Bruges, is actually not the port. If you were cruising like me, you would actually wake up in Zeebrugge. It only takes a short 20-25 minute trip to arrive in Bruges.
In the most touristy fashion, we got Belgian waffles promptly after docking.
Bruges is a more historic town. The buildings feature gothic architecture made with brick, most built in the 12th-13th century. Also in the 13th century, Bruges emerged as trading port supported by the English wool traders and Germans with timber, fur, wax, and fish. Regionally, Bruges is in the Flanders region which produces cloth. The English and German traders would trade for Flemish cloth and other goods at this time.
In the Medieval times, Bruges was also a Viking settlement in the 9th century. In fact, the name Bruges stems from the Norse word, bryggja meaning “harbour” or “landing stage.” While under Viking control, Bruges became a trading hub between England and Scandinavia. From what I’ve researched, I don’t think this victory was an easy one. The ruling authorities of Brugge at the time were doing everything in their power to stop a Viking takeover. Their efforts included re-building and reinforcing previous Roman fortifications around Bruges.
Enough history lessons! Time to get into what you can go see and experience in Bruges a little bit more recently. After our Belgian waffles, we took a nice stroll around town until we found the horse and buggy ride. After our ride through the beautiful buildings, we went to the Basilica of the Holy Blood. This is an interesting little church. It’s not a free standing church, it’s actually nestled in between other buildings in a square. It shares a wall with the corner of a building? I don’t know how to explain it but you can see it in the photo here:
(this photo was taken from the internet to show you the whole thing, but there’s me outside the door also!
Very curious little church. It has two levels and gothic architecture. I wonder if the gold statues outside are real gold. I wonder if the blood inside is actually real. Apparently this church houses a piece of cloth that is soaked in the blood of Jesus. Do I think its real? I don’t know. Is old blood really supposed to be this red? I also don’t know. I think it might be real.. but we have no way of knowing for sure. Plus… why would it be in Belgium of all places?
PHOTO DUMP TIME
Next we visited the Church of Our Lady! This is the famous church because it has the sculpture “Madonna and Child.” This was the only statue that Michelangelo left to Italy in his life time. It was stolen twice by the Nazis during WW2, but now it sits in the Church of Our Lady. Even though Michelangelo left it to Italy, the Mouscron family acquired it and donated it to the church. The statue rests on top of their tombs.
There was a very curious… attraction? That we saw on our walk in Brugge. There was a dumpster outside of an electronics store and they threw away old phonecases and other tech materials. This massive dumpster had many people digging into it trying to find materials they could use. I thought this was a great way to recycle and also give people a chance to make use out of trash. You know what they say, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure! My friend and I decided to see if there was anything we wanted, so we took a look if there was anything. Pretty funny to say that I went dumpster diving in Belgium!
The last thing that we did in Belgium… is buy Belgian chocolates. Belgian waffles… Belgian chocolates… my dad lovess fancy chocolates so of course he HAD to have some. We bought them from this chocolatier called Neuhaus. Neuhaus chocolates have been around since 1857 and this brand invented the Belgian praline! The founder was actually Swiss though, not Belgian. So does that make these chocolates Swiss-Belgian… or just Swiss, or just Belgian? Also I’m not a chocolate connoisseur, so I don’t really know what pralines are, but I think they’re just the little boxes of assorted chocolates.
Well everyone, that brings this blog post and this series to a close! I hope you enjoyed reading it and I’m so grateful if you’ve read this post to the end. Let me know in the comments if you’ve been to Netherlands or Belgium or any of the other locations on this cruise. Maybe you’ve been on this exact cruise? Anyway, I really enjoyed this cruise and I’m super grateful that I got to visit so many European capitals. And a special thank you to Ellie, my lovely friend whom I met on this cruise and had so much fun with. It truly was amazing. We’ve been friends for so long now :]
Thanks for reading! See you in the next travel post <3
Sources for my history information:
Kinderdijk:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinderdijk
https://kinderdijk.nl/en/our-story/
https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/818/
https://kinderdijk.nl/en/history-of-kinderdijk/
Miffy!
https://www.miffy.com/about-miffy
Cube Houses:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cube_house
Bruges Churches:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Our_Lady,_Bruges
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_the_Holy_Blood
Bruges History/Architecture:
https://www.britannica.com/place/Brugge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruges