Day 4: Rotterdam
We arrived at our next stop, Rotterdam, around midnight. We left the ship just after breakfast, eager to look around. Once again, the ship was positioned close-in to the city.
We were a short walk to one of Rotterdam’s most well-known landmarks, the cube houses. The bright yellow homes have odd slanted sides and hardly look inhabitable. They’ve been an iconic part of the Rotterdam skyline for 40 years.
KidTripster Tip: The Kijk-Kubus Museum is open daily from 11-5 if you want to see what a cube house looks like from the inside. Unfortunately, timing didn’t allow us to go in.
Next we found our way to Market Hall, a massive food hall set inside a stunning mixed use building. When we travel, we enjoy purchasing food souvenirs. We got lots of goodies here and some snacks, too.
Our time in Rotterdam was limited as we’d booked an afternoon excursion through A-ROSA. We boarded a bus, parked just across the street from the ship, for a family-friendly excursion to Madurodam and The Hague.Â
Madurodam is an adorable park that showcases the most prominent places and buildings around The Netherlands on a miniature scale. Have you ever been to a Miniland at a LEGOLAND park? It’s kind of like that, but it’s not made of LEGO bricks. All replicas are built on a 1:25 scale. The intricate detail was incredible. My son liked the interactive buttons that made the displays come to life. We had about 90 minutes to explore. We saw it all, but definitely could have stayed longer.Â
[ Related: See the Netherlands in Miniature at Madurodam ]
After leaving Madurodam, we hopped back on the bus, heading for Peace Palace in The Hague. This is the location of the International Court of Justice. Next to it is the Eternal Peace Flame. The flame was placed outside the entrance gates in 2002. It’s surrounded by the World Peace Path which contains stones from 196 countries.
After a brief look around, we got back on the bus for the 25-minute ride back to the ship, arriving just before dinner.
After dinner, we once again headed up to the deck of the SENA. Rotterdam has a unique skyline and we enjoyed checking out all the interesting buildings along the river. The SENA’s tall, and some of the bridges in Rotterdam sit low, so the crew scurried around taking down all of the umbrellas on the top deck.Â
The A-ROSA SENA is the largest ship operating on the Rhine River. It launched in 2022 with a focus on sustainable design. The E-Motion ship has a hybrid propulsion system with diesel and electric engines. Using stored battery power, it can dock silently and emission-free. The ship holds 280 passengers and 70 crew members.
Keep reading: click the #6 button below to find out which country we visited next.
