Cultural Walking Tour in Rotterdam

Tania did a great job! She really knows her materials! I. Would definitely tour with her again. She made us forget just how cold it was the day we took her tour in January.

We really enjoyed our time with the tour guide. She was smart, very interesting, and personable. We saw a lot of the city and learned about its history and culture. Would gladly take the tour again!

I was the solo participant of this tour so i was privileged to get the extra attention with lots of detailed information about the city and its iconic structures. The downside of being a solo tour is that you don't get to meet other tourists from the city. The 2.5 hours walking tour was a great discussion and story telling experience with the guide using history, politics, culture, architecture, engineering and urban designs. The tour started from Central Station and ended at the Erasmus Bridge. In between we covered most of the iconic symbols and structures of the city including Groot Handlesgebouw, Cube House, Pencil Building, Market Hall, Mass River, City Hall, Timmerhuis, Lijnbaan, Lawrence Church and the White House. The unique thing about this tour was that it was not entirely a commercial tour but rather more of a personalized tour. I liked the fact that the guide went to into details about the structures and the city which i would not know otherwise. For example, she explained importance of some of the sculptures and memorial sites. It was a sunny day and i wish i had brought with me my sunglasses which would have made the tour more comfortable to my eyes. The tour is long so carry water with you. Most important your phone should be charged fully to capture good photos and videos of the photo spots. Few suggestions to the tour company for improvement would be: 1. The guide should pre-decide the most special photo spots from the walking tour and make it a point to offer the customer to get their photos taken. 2. The guide should explain what will happen in the tour starting point, ending point etc and throughout the tour the guide should tell us where we are going next and what will happen. 3. The guide should take a minute or two to explain a bit about a particulate event and its significance that is taking place in the city around the same time such as Rotterdam Marathon.

We loved this tour with Sonia, a local architect. Sonia greeted us at the Rotterdam train station and showed us around the rebuilt downtown district, explaining as we went interesting points about urban design and the context of rebuilding this major port city after its destruction in WWII. Great tour.