Rotterdam's 'Ferry Harbour' or Veerhaven

In the past few months I've done a few posts about different parts of Rotterdam, so this week I thought  I'd take you to another of the city's historic harbours and one of my favourite places on our side of the river. This time, it's to the Veerhaven, which translates into English as the Ferry Harbour.

Despite the Oude Haven being the oldest of Rotterdam's inner city harbours, the Veerhaven seems much more fitting as a historic harbour, surrounded as it is by beautiful and stately old buildings that used to house merchant and shipping businesses. It lies on the north (our) side of the river, a little downstream of the famous Erasmus Bridge and Wikipedia tells me that "almost all the buildings around and near the Veerhaven are national monuments." 

The Erasmus Bridge. Looking south, the Veerhaven
is to the right of this image, behind me.

The Veerhaven was named after the ferry service to Katendrecht on the southern bank of the Maas river. Incredibly, the ferry began operating in the 15th century, and was the only means of crossing the river until the Willemsbrug (that big, red bridge in Rotterdam) was built in 1878. However, the ferry continued in service until 1968 under a company delightfully called Heen & Weer (Dutch for 'there and back'!). When the metro added a new means of transport across (or rather under) the river, the ferry was, I suppose, sadly redundant. Nowadays, the Rotterdam water taxi carries passengers from the Veerhaven across to the Hotel New York, so it's nice there's still some kind of public transport by boat over the river.

That "big red bridge, the Willemsbrug" as seen (artfully) from
my deck Oude Haven one rainy evening.

These days, the Veerhaven harbour itself is home to some wonderful old sailing craft, some of which are former North Sea fishing vessels. They have a distinctive 'tub-like' design that is quite similar to old Norwegian fishing boats. 

I really love the collection in the Veerhaven because the boats are so different from our own barges, and it's a real pleasure to walk around the harbour. The photos below are some I took several years ago, so the occupants of the harbour today may have changed, but these will give you an idea of the type of classic craft that are mostly there.

One of the things I love about the Veerhaven is its floating harbour master's office (see above). It really is a gorgeous building and has quite an interesting history of its own. Apparently it started life in 1911 as the Rotterdam River Police building in the Parkhaven a few kilometres downstream where there are commercial locks into the canal system leading to Delft. During the war, it fell into disuse and was moved to Zwijndrecht (not far from Dordrecht, and upstream from Rotterdam) where it became someone's home until 1995. It then made its final move when it was sold to the Veerhaven Foundation for the symbolic sum of a single guilder. Clearly someone thought it needed to be placed in a special context and money was not going to play a role.

I think it's time I took another wander around the Veerhaven, and when I do, I'll take some more photos to add to this post. It would be good to see it again.

On a more personal front, I've been busy on the Hennie H this week, making a cupboard out of a hole. I'm thinking of dubbing it the 'wholly hole' in recognition of its increased status. The hole in question was made in an emergency several years ago when we had a fire inside during some welding work ...ahem. We've talked for years about doing this, about making the hole useful as a whole (sorry), and at last, I've managed to get round to it. I'm quite pleased with the result and am looking purposefully at the other holes in the walls now.

Enjoy the rest of your week, allemaal, and I'll show you the finished product and hopefully another new wholly hole (to the right) next time.