Rotterdam is unique and utterly fascinating

More than 80 years after it ended, World War II continues to exert a powerful legacy over Europe.

Travelling around the continent, you’ll find war cemeteries and memorials, battle sites and bullet-scarred edifices, and a raft of blitzed cities reconstructed to look like they did before the bombs rained down and the tanks rolled in.

The old towns of Warsaw (Poland) and Dresden (Germany) are two of the most striking examples I’ve visited; painstakingly pieced back together in the decades after the war to such an extent that both could now convincingly be backdrops for period dramas set in the 18th or 19th century.

Rotterdam, on the other hand, would struggle.

This Dutch port is a unique and utterly fascinating place.

I’m exploring it the day before embarking on a cruise with Holland America, a firm birthed here in 1873 and with which we’re sailing to the Norwegian fjords. Strolling around Rotterdam is easy and enjoyable, yet I find it a little weird and disconcerting as I can’t recall being in the middle of a European city this large and seeing so few old buildings.

The explanation is tragic yet uplifting. When the sun rose on May 14, 1940, Rotterdam’s medieval core bulged with the kind of quaint houses and churches you still find in abundance in other Dutch cities like Amsterdam, Haarlem and Utrecht.

Then, in a 15-minute aerial bombardment, the Luftwaffe changed things forever, dropping almost 100 tons on the city, killing more than 900 people and leaving countless more injured and homeless, with an estimated 30,000 buildings reduced to rubble as the fires burned.

When the dust settled, rather than rebuilding as before, urban planners decided to capitalise on the “tabula rasa” (blank slate) to cultivate a new Rotterdam, a city that hugs the wide Nieuwe Maas, a river linking the Rhine and the North Sea.

New streets were laid out, wider and straighter than before. Buildings shot up with bold modern flavours as the city morphed into a playground for architects to experiment with emerging design trends.

Some of the most eye-popping examples came in the 1980s, masterminded by Amsterdam architect Piet Blom. Painted bright yellow and tilted at an angle, the outlandish Cube Houses neighbour the Blaaktoren, a tower block known as “The Pencil” thanks to its pointed roof resembling a sharpened pencil.

Blom’s weird and wonderful creations cluster between Blaak railway and metro station and the city’s oldest port, Oude Haven, which is peppered with historic wooden barges and fringed by one of the few notable buildings to survive World War II. That’s the Witte Huis, an art nouveau-style 43m block billed as Europe’s first high-rise when erected in 1898.

Even more startling is the nearby Sint-Laurenskerk church, the best-preserved relic of Rotterdam’s vanished medieval core. This 15th-century Gothic gem was restored after sustaining major wartime damage, and still hosts religious services as well as concerts and exhibitions.

You’ll crane your neck at countless other buildings in this city, particularly the wave of skyscrapers that mushroomed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

The top seven tallest buildings in The Netherlands are here, earning Rotterdam its “Manhattan on the Maas” moniker. The loftiest is De Zalmhaven, a 215m residential tower completed in 2022 close to the Erasmus Bridge, the most dramatic of the bridges knitting together Rotterdam’s network of districts, islands, canals, wharves and marinas.

Carrying motorists, cyclists, pedestrians, skaters and trams over the Nieuwe Maas, the 802m bridge was created by the studio of Utrecht-born architect Ben van Berkel and is affectionately known as “De Zwaan” (“The Swan”) for its graceful cables and asymmetrical pylon. It connects central Rotterdam with Kop van Zuid, a revitalised area that includes Wilhelminapier, a peninsula named after the Netherlands’ longest-serving queen.

We’re staying on the peninsula at Hotel New York, close to where hundreds of thousands of Dutch people emigrated to the New World.

Today travellers from the Netherlands and beyond arrive with their luggage to board cruises at Wilhelminapier’s terminal, which is dwarfed by De Rotterdam, a trio of interconnected skyscrapers concocted by another living star of Dutch design, Rotterdam-born Rem Koolhaas.

Also making their presence felt on the peninsula are top Italian architect Renzo Piano, creator of the KPN Tower, while another doyen of international design, Sir Norman Foster, conjured the 32-storey World Port Centre.

Rising by our base, Hotel New York — which is set in the elegant former headquarters of Holland America — Foster’s semi-circular tower is occupied by the Port of Rotterdam Authority, which manages this, Europe’s largest port, extending over 40km from the city centre to the coast.

We’ll see the sprawling, crane-filled docks — and enjoy more marvellous panoramas of Rotterdam — when we sail out tomorrow. And we’ll return to this city a week later for another opportunity to delve deeper into its history and evolution.

A delight to walk around on your own, Rotterdam can also be savoured on walks and bike rides with local experts, including architects who’ll pause at spots of interest and intrigue that might otherwise pass you by. + Steve McKenna was a guest of Holland America Line. They have not influenced this story, or read it before publication. fact file + With its striking roof canopy, Rotterdam Central Station is an interesting place to arrive. Trains link the city with central Amsterdam and its airport — about 30 minutes away — and it also has direct Eurostar services to and from Paris and London. To help plan a trip to Rotterdam and the Netherlands, visit holland.com. + Holland America offers cruises around the world, including several from Rotterdam. One option is a seven-day round-trip Norwegian fjords cruise departing on April 11, 2027, priced from $2564 per person, including a Have It All Package that bundles together a drinks package, wi-fi and speciality dining and shore excursion credits. hollandamerica.com