All-time favourite

Of all the bridges surrounding our little island, Noordereiland in the heart of Rotterdam, de Hef is my favourite. Maybe not as famous as the Erasmus Bridge, but definitely a close second when it comes to the icons of Rotterdam. When I go for shopping, I always walk right past it. This time, the sun was out and I thought I'd give a shot at framing my favourite bridge in some pictures.

There are two bridges here: de Hef (green bridge in the back) and the Koninginnebrug (the white bridge, the one you can actually pass over)

I love taking pictures around here, and around boats in general. There's always these brightly coloured and weird things about, some of it looking so outdated. And slightly dangerous.

These yellow walkways are hop-on spots for the watertaxi's. There's a lot of water in Rotterdam, and the watertaxi's can take you to 50 different locations and they're very fast.

De Hef, some history

De Hef was never meant as a bridge for walking across, it used to be a train bridge. Originally, when it was built in 1878, it wasn't a 'lift bridge' (is that how to call it? A bridge that lets the boats pass by the whole bridge element moving up?), it used to open through a rotation mechanism. That rotation mechanism was rather slow and caused delays and they replaced it with this lifting system in 1927. In World War 2, de Hef took quite some damage, but after the war it was restored very quickly in order for the train to be connected again. The bridge was in use till 1993. That was when a tunnel was built below the Maas, de Willemspoortunnel, where the trains go through. Most of the train tracks have been removed, and also the part of the bridge that crossed the opposite side of the Maas, but de Hef has been preserved as a monument.

The white part of the Koninginnebrug is where it opens for boats to pass. It doesn't open very frequently, since most boats go around the other side of the island.

View from the centre of the Koninginnebrug

Now officially in Rotterdam Zuid

Once you've crossed the Koninginnebrug, you get to 'Zuid' - the South part of Rotterdam. For a long time, Rotterdam Zuid had a bad name, with higher criminality rates and neighbourhoods you wouldn't feel safe walking alone at night. But the last years things have improved so much. The city invested a lot in safety measures, but even more in upgrading and improving these areas of town. They really (can) have a charm of their own, if you know where to look.

From this angle, looking through de Hef you see the Willemsbrug (red bridge) in the back. To leave our little island and get to the North part of town, we cross the Willemsbrug.

The lifted part of the bridge was added in 1927, but the side parts are 1878. That's kind of ancient, right? Real classy industrialism.

I thought I'd climb up to the back area of de Hef and get some pictures from that angle. But I guess this is exactly the kind of roughness which you'll find more of in Rotterdam than in most cities in Netherlands. Dutch cities tend to really be very neat and organised, every square centimetre purposely designed for maximum benefit. Rotterdam has more rough terrain, which maybe makes the city a little less easy to love. But it also gives a certain unpolished effect, the feeling that there's no pretending or make-belief, just the facts as they are.

Find de Hef

This area could definitely look better.

So from the side, looking in, this is what de Hef looks like. You can see the train tracks. I can imagine that being on a train, going through this bridge would almost feel like going through a tunnel. There's a board to the right explaining the rules of the BMX cross road biking park next to de Hef. They should've added to the rules not to paint all over the sign.

Entrepot

So I got to the supermarket, got everything I needed to make my favourite risotto for dinner, then quickly went back outside. And walked back home by going around the back of the supermarket, through the Entrepot Haven. Just one of the many little port areas where people can harbour their boats and ships.

Boats

Ships

The weather was great, but still the temperatures are quite low. If you've ever visited Netherlands in spring time you'll know how, once the sun gets out, everybody goes crazy about being outside and how they'll be having a drink in their T-shirt while people from decently warm countries still wear their winter coats and gloves. Lol. Today even the Dutch people figured it was too cold to be sitting out.

Which means, empty terraces.

This is the bridge on the Stieltjesstraat which is where all the boats lying in the Entrepot Haven pass through to get into the little port area.

The way back home

So I came back to de Hef through the Stieltjesstraat. Which means I walked passed Villa Zebra, a kids museum and a glass building, which gave me a funny double view on de Hef.

And then back on the island there was this one last view of de Hef, in the reflection of the windows of this cute little coffee place which opened very recently. Still need to go and try their coffee.

Koozie, on Noordereiland

Walking back along our side of the island, these days we have to pass this area that's been under construction for a long time. Well they aren't really constructing anything right now, they just fenced the area. Sometime during our stay in India, this part of the island caved in. Possibly because one of the larger ships hit the wall. Or maybe just because some parts of the islands construction have become old and are in need of some restoration work. The city is planning some large scale restoration, will be up to the front of our house too.

It isn't very reassuring that the reason for this area caving in is unclear.

Let's hope the rest of the island holds a bit longer ;)

So including my earlier post, that should give you an idea of Noordereiland and the bridges around it, and the boats. But then, the boats are different every day. And so is Noordereiland. Just wait till spring actually happens and the flowers and trees are happy again. The whole place will look so different. Which is why I never get tired of taking pictures around here ;). Thanks for watching and reading along with me, hope you enjoyed!

As always, pictures and contents are mine and Steemit originals.
Camera: Canon Powershot G7X