Travels with Claud

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Day 12

20160828

Breda to Rotterdam



An almost uneventful train journey from Breda to Rotterdam, other than the incredible coughing, throat clearing, hacking, phlegm making machine that was sitting behind me. What a disgusting racket! Didn’t get a proper look but wouldn’t rate the chances of them pulling very highly, but then people can have strange tastes.

The train service here is excellent. If you have a foreign credit card then you have to go to the counter and pay cash, not a problem for me, I found that out before I came; but I did see some compatriots having tantrums of the ‘stupid country’ kind when the machine refused to take their cards, and they then had the further intense irritation of having to find a cash machine. Couldn’t help a wee snigger.

The big blue and yellow inter-city trains are all power and muscle and no stopping at out of the way places, and some of them are double deckers. You can take your bike on, but it can be a bit of a squeeze. The local sprinter trains are much more civilised. They do stop at every station but if you’re not in a hurry who cares? The great thing is it’s much easier to get your bike on one. The train floor is flush with the platform, the bike carriage space is much bigger, and in my experience they’re not as busy as their bigger relations. Even if the train does fill up, as it did near Rotterdam Central, your bike has priority. So although your bike is taking up four of the pull down seats everyone respects the bike, and doesn’t move it. I was watching mind!

While I remember it, litter. This must be the most litter free country in the world; this has got to start really, really early in the education system right? It reminds me of Japan. I remember arriving in Tokyo and getting to the airport train station. You could have ‘eaten your dinner’ off of the train tracks, they were so clean. Same here. Riding through central Rotterdam I saw not a foam cup, not a burger wrapper, not a crisp packet or coke bottle. Nothing. I’m sure there’s litter hiding somewhere but I haven’t seen much of it. The only exception was at the GroNINGer museum in GroNINGen. The museum is partially below the water level so as you look out of the lower windows you are at eye level with the moat. I did notice a few bottles and cans floating about, but that’s about it.

I got to Rotterdam at mid-day, checked in to the hotel and went for a wander around. I soon got lost amidst the tower blocks, backstreets and shopping centres, so called into the VVV tourist info shop to get a map. Also a minor (I hope) worry developing. For some reason my left heel has started to really hurt, which makes walking far a bit painful. Luckily my hotel is in the city centre, and close to everything I need, mainly food!

I can’t go on enough about the brilliant public transport here. There are very few cars in the city centres, and that’s because there are dedicated bike lanes, buses, trams, trains, water taxis, and in Rotterdam, the metro. And public transport is significantly cheaper than at home to boot.

The attitude here seems to be; ‘you know what we’ll discourage car use but we’ll make public transport so good that you won’t really need a car’. Compare and contrast with say, Bath, where the attitude seems to be; ‘you know what we don’t your f...ing car in the city, but what’s more we won’t provide decent f...ing public transport, and we’ll fine you in your car for anything at every opportunity so f... off and don’t bother coming into Bath. So I don’t.

Off to Dordrecht on the Waterbus tomorrow, an hour long trip through windmill country I believe. It’s forecast to be another lovely day. Have already scoped out a likely candidate for tomorrow’s dinner. The Bazaar kebab and Couscous place on Witte de Withstraat, lovely.

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