Rotterdam Art Route...

The following day, Bob joined me and Jimmy when we stopped for the Rotterdam Art Route on the way to the Hash. Our first stop was our best, as we had a great conversation with artist Toon Fibbe. He had this shoe made by Sam, the Shoe Doctor, whose shoe shop was opposite the Chicago Board of Trade and Mercantile Exchange. It was a replica of shoes that commodity traders used to wear in order to stand above their competition. 

This sculpture was Toon’s way of asking how high would the traders have gone if a regulation hadn’t been enacted after some traders lost their balance while wearing platform shoes.

The rest of his studio was full of a fascinating exhibit called The Great Mirror of Folly, a life-sized diorama constructed of prints from 1720 depicting the first stock market crash that same year creating a collage in which streams of stock papers penetrate and deform the bodies of traders. 

Unfortunately I can’t remember the details but somehow it tied into today’s global income inequality; hearing Toon explain it all was very interesting. I hope for his sake he finds a way for his exhibit to be displayed in a museum. 

We then visited a few other locations on the Art Route. In this house, we walked across a sculpture of empty beer cans, which surprisingly held our weight...

…and in this school, I took this selfie.

On our way back to the station, we spotted these murals by Ox Alien, my favorite Rotterdam street artist …

…and reflections on the glass wall of the train station.
 

The Leiden Weaver’s House...

Along the Leiden Art Route was the Leiden Weaver’s House Museum, another spot we’d somehow overlooked all these years. 

Housed in a building from 1631. it was occupied by a variety of weaving families over the centuries. This loom dates back to 1830.

Most recently, it was used for student housing from 1948 to 2003. So hard to believe that students were sharing a kitchen like this up until just two years before we moved to Leiden. 

 

Leiden Art Route...

Veronica and I went to Leiden on the last Saturday in September for the Leiden Art Route. Several of the sites were old schools now repurposed to house studios for artists.

Saw some interesting art and some interesting buildings. Bought a very cool belt made from a recycled bike tube.

This street wasn’t part of the Art Route, but was very colorful. 

We were surprised that we’d never come across these two cows before.

Nearby was this cute minibieb. 

On the way back to the station, we spotted a florist with lots of gnomes.
 

More Rotterdam...

To get back to Rotterdam Central, we had to cross several bridges. The first was the Koninginnebrug (Queen’s Bridge), built in 1929. 

We were happy to see this pretty art on the bridge. 

We also spotted De Hef, a vertical lift railway bridge built in 1927 and heavily damaged in the Nazi bombing of Rotterdam in 1940. After being decommissioned in 1993, it is now a national heritage site. Most recently it has been in the news because the city is considering allowing it to be temporarily dismantled so Jeff Bezos’ $500 million superyacht being built in Rotterdam can pass through.

Our next crossing was on the Willemsbrug (William’s Bridge), built in 1981 and named for King Willem III.

We were surprised to spot Tropicana. an abandoned indoor waterslide park that was recently converted into an incubator for circular economy start-ups (more on that later). 

We spotted this mural as we walked along the Maas River...

…and this reflection as we swung past the Art Depot.

Lastly, we visited this dramatic art installation near Rotterdam Central. Somehow we had previously managed to miss The BMW when we visited artworks just around the corner. According to Atlas Obscura, this real BMW was placed on this building in 1987 and was repainted as recently as 2017. 

When we arrived at Rotterdam Central, the blank schedule board was not a good omen. More disappointing was the entire lack of communication from the very few train employees within the station. Turns out it was a complete national shutdown of trains due to an electrical problem. We had a few false starts and finally gave up. We were thankful that we weren’t further away as were able to take a tram and bus home.
 

Spotted in Rotterdam...

The Dutch are very fond of window displays in their homes. While some are artistic, others are quite creepy such as these dolls.

The sky changed quickly from very dramatic...

...to pretty bland. I wasn’t actually photographing the bland sky, but rather the birds perched on the posts. 

We had never been in this part of Rotterdam before along the Maas River.

Veronica was excited to find a geocache, something that we enjoy doing but often forget about.

It was cool to see Rotterdam’s first floating street, consisting of 18 harbor lofts built in 2020 of sustainable materials. During high tide, the houses can float nearly an entire story higher.

 

Pow Wow Festival...

There were some pretty cool new murals that had just been made for the Pow Wow Festival the week before. Sheep Creep in Wolf’s Garb was painted by a Belgian American artist who grew up in DC. 

Enjoy the Journey by British artist Insa featured colored skulls spiraling towards the inevitable disappearing point in the middle, symbolizing death as the great unifier.

Love was painted by a Portugese artist, who was happy to get to paint on bricks which are full of character and are rarely seen in the Mediterranean. 

Four painters teamed up to overlap their sections of the long wall of Skateland, an indoor skatepark.

Directly in front of Skateland was this colorful truck. 

This was the largest mural so far by Ox-Alien, who created Rotterdam’s unofficial mascot. In front of the wall was a community park run by local residents. 

On the opposite side of the building was this mural by a local artist featuring a recurring theme in her work: feeling happy and free.