One of Europe’s most underrated cities is shining in 2025

Every city has its forgotten corners, those grubby, seedy spots you instinctively avoid. For the seven years I lived in Rotterdam, this back alley was the Steigersgracht waterway. Once part of an intricate network of canals in the city centre, it had become a dumping ground where the water stank and the canal was filled with muck.

Hanging 10 in Rotterdam’s RiF 010 surf park.

So 10 years later, when I find myself floating in the middle of the same canal, I’m slightly apprehensive about putting my head under. I’m next in line to catch a wave at the world’s first inner-city surf park, RiF 010, and with a few hundred locals on their lunch break watching the first week of operations, the pressure is on.

Surrounded by skyscrapers, I paddle hard as a perfect 1.6-metre left-hander curls toward me. It crests, I paddle into position, spring up… and immediately wipe out. Thankfully, the water is cold and clean, and I surface to cheers and chortles from the crowd, absolutely stoked and ready to go again.

Build it and they will come… the quay in front of Fenix 1.Credit: Iris van den Broek

Rotterdam isn’t top of the average Australian traveller’s shopping list when planning a trip to Europe. Once considered as beautiful as its rival Amsterdam, the centre of the city was almost wiped out at the beginning of World War II. With Rotterdam devastated, the Netherlands surrendered rather than have their other cities destroyed. And while history moved on, Rotterdam struggled to recover as decades passed, a working class port city in decline.

Yet having a blank architectural canvas had a curious impact on Rotterdam: the city became a beacon for architectural experimentation and an incubator for new ideas, just like the surf park.

“I couldn’t build this anywhere else but Rotterdam”, says RiF 010’s founder Edwin van Viegen.

“Rif” means reef in Dutch, while the 010 refers to the city’s area code. The entrepreneur received a €3 million grant to assist with the project, one of the conditions being the clean-up of the canal. Using water pumped from the River Maas, the urban surf pool uses micro-sieves, which use less energy than traditional sand filters. An aqua-robotic rubbish collector patrols the perimeter of the waterways, and a sunken, floating bar and terrace sits next to the pool, which includes a spectator “splash zone”.

“If I’d wanted to build it in a field somewhere, it wouldn’t have taken me 12 years”, said van Viegen, a keen surfer who faced significant legal challenges to get the project off the ground.

“Instead, I wanted to do something that benefitted the city.”

The city of Rotterdam and its citizens take pride in that “something”: the focus of most new developments is how they can improve the quality of life for locals, rather than being built for tourists.

Hotel NHow Rotterdam.Credit: Iris van den Broek

This theme continues with the construction of the Hofbogen: the repurposing of an abandoned, above-ground train viaduct from the city centre to the north, inspired by the success of New York’s High Line. Progress has been slow but steady: the once-abandoned arched workshops underneath have been filled with businesses, from salons to bespoke furniture makers, artisans and coffee roasters. In January 2024, a new food hall opened in the old train station at the halfway point, Station Bergweg, with patrons taking a beer, a bowl of ramen or a box of chocolates from a vending machine to eat on the station terrace, with views overlooking the city.

However, the decision to revitalise the next stage of the Hofbogen involves starting construction from the outer fringe of the city and finishing in the CBD last, so the locals get the initial benefit.

Of course, tourists aren’t neglected: in the coming year, there will be a flourish of new hotels and museums. One of the few historic buildings in the city centre to escape destruction in WWII was (for nefarious reasons) the old post office. In 2026, the building will open as the new five-star 224-room Kimpton Hotel.

Reopening in late 2025 is the Nederlands Fotomuseum, in a newly renovated, heritage-listed building on the Rijnhaven, a harbour in the city’s north. Home to more than six million photos, the new Dutch National Photo Museum will occupy the old Santos coffee factory on the harbour.

Just a short walk away, construction continues on one of Europe’s most important new museums, the Fenix Museum of Immigration, set to open in May 2025. A giant silver tornado, both a work of art and a viewing platform, glistens in the morning sun, rising from the centre of the historic warehouse building.

The museum will focus on the human experience of immigration, examining the phenomenon through contemporary art and documentary photography. More than 200 pieces have already been commissioned and acquired, but central to the museum is its planned ground-floor installation known as The Maze. In the past three years, the museum has interviewed thousands of migrants and collected 2000 or so suitcases belonging to the storytellers to physically complement their stories. Each suitcase will form part of a labyrinth designed to allow visitors complete immersion in the migrant experience, and the challenges faced when trying to navigate it.

The location of the museum is particularly poignant: on the south bank of the Nieuwe Maas river system, it was once home to the world’s largest warehouse, but was also the place where more than three million immigrants (including Albert Einstein) departed Europe with the Holland America Line, bound for the New World.

Before it became the museum site, the unrenovated warehouse was used as the Fenix Food Hall. The hipster hangout now sits next to the museum, underneath the new Fenix 1 housing development, the first of a series of apartment blocks revitalising the area.

The Rijnhaven, like the Steigergracht, was derelict and decayed for years – a crumbling port area in a rough neighbourhood most people avoided. Slowly the area has gentrified.

Floating Office at the Rijnhaven.Credit: Iris van den Broek

The addition of a small pedestrian bridge in 2012 created easier access for bike and foot traffic between the Katendrecht neighbourhood and the city. New apartment blocks and hotels including the NHow were built on the Wilhelmina Pier in 2014; the same year, a food hall opened in a warehouse previously abandoned for 40 years.

In 2021, the energy-positive, C02-negative, three-storey Floating Office with green roof opened, housing the Global Centre for Adaptation, and the city’s quirkiest accommodation option, the Wikkelboat, opened on the water.

The unique Wikkelboat accommodation.

Six uniquely designed houseboats are moored on a pontoon walkway from the Rijnhaven’s floating park, each made of 24 layers of wrapped, corrugated cardboard. They feature modular design, solar power and, I discover after three minutes of huffing and puffing, a retractable deck that reveals a sunken jacuzzi. Rotterdam (and largely The Netherlands) has strict rules on short-term apartment rentals. The Wikkelboat is a brilliant self-contained option to experience the city, with two bikes on the side ready to go, murphy beds to optimise space, and an outdoor shower to complement the indoor bathroom.

Inside a Wikkelboat.

Settled in the jacuzzi, I look across to where a new beach and park is being constructed and where a series of skyscrapers have been approved. So far, more than a third of the harbour basin – exceeding eight hectares – has been drained and reclaimed for the 350,000-square-metre urban development, which will bring more than 2000 new homes and office blocks, floating parks and an educational tidal park.

Wikkelboat… fun for sun-lovers.

But with temperatures today hitting more than 30 degrees, the city is preoccupied with Rotterdam’s newest swimming spot, near Rijnhaven’s first floating park and just 100 metres from the Wikkelboat. Clean water testing and record-busting temperatures mean every spot of grass and concrete on the floating park is taken up with bodies, beach towels and inflatables.

Ten years ago, this harbour was so dirty I wouldn’t dare put a toe in. However, I can’t help myself. I haul out of the warm water in the jacuzzi, and dive off the side of the Wikkelboat, attracting the attention of a mother duck and eight ducklings. It is cold, and thankfully, clean.

Rotterdam isn’t Europe’s most beautiful city. It’s not a top-tier European destination like Paris or Rome, Barcelona or London. But it’s a place that embraces the future, and shows innovative European living at its finest. Want to see the real Europe? Rotterdam is ready.

THE DETAILS

FLY
Singapore Airlines operates daily flights to Amsterdam via Singapore from most Australian capital cities.

See www.singaporeair.com

STAY
Self-contained Wikkelboats are in the Red Marina and Rijnhaven in Rotterdam, and can sleep six to eight people with prices from €189 ($323). See wikkelboat.nl

PLAY
RiF 010 has surf sessions from €45 ($77). See rif010.nl

MORE
rotterdam.info

The writer travelled as a guest of Wikkelboat and RiF010.