I started this post in March, when everything outside was still pretty bare but with a few little buds trying to poke their heads out. Now it's May when I'm finishing this up, and everything has been gorgeous and green for weeks! So anyways, you're going to get pictures from both winter and spring in here.
We live in Kralingen and we LOVE it! This area is east of Rotterdam city center, by about 20 minutes by bike. We were drawn to its location next to Ryan's university, its gorgeous neighborhoods, the abundance of families we saw everywhere, its quieter streets lined with old twisty trees, and the nearby huuuge wooded park with a lake (Kralingse Bos & Plas, which you'll probably see a lot of on here!). And now that we're actually living here, we were so right to pick this place! I couldn't love it any more. Ryan's commute is a five-minute bike ride, our area is SO quiet and family-friendly, and we're just a block south of the lake so with a hop onto our bikes, we're lakeside in four minutes.
So read on for a massive post about my love affair with everything in our perfect Kralingen!
The general greeny watery goodness.
I love biking around downtown and I love the feel of the city, but when I finish errands and get back out to our area, I just feel peace. And I think a huge part of that is due to the green spaces and canals.
Central Rotterdam was completely flattened by German bombings during WWII because of its massive river port, but Kralingen was spared. It gives such a neat peek into Rotterdam in the late 1800s. Most of the central city's canals weren't included in the reconstruction after the war, but we luckily still have a lot, and Ollie and I love them, love them, love them.
^^The trail on the route to Ryan's school.
How lovely are the little flowers they put in the medians? ^^ Sometimes they're just scattered naturally, like this, and other times they've been planted in the prettiest swirling patterns!
Our views off the back balcony. The birdsongs we get all day are heaven.
The 100-year-old homes and streets
Kralingen was originally a separate village where Rotterdam's high society kept summer homes and gorgeous estates, and as we ride through these unreal pre-WWII streets each day to go to the store or the metro station, alls I'm gonna say is my face looks like 😍. Every stinking time.
I wish I could say we live in one of these! I love the brick, the varying window shapes, the stained glass accents, the rooftop architecture, the trim choices, the front doors, the gardens...
I was SO fascinated to see these tiles in the sidewalk on our way home from date night one evening, a couple blocks from our apartment. Over the past few years we had seen them in Salzburg and Amsterdam, but I hadn't once seen them in Rotterdam yet. And now, we always say hello to Flora and Hendrik when we pass their home. It's a humbling and really emotional experience to see these outside the front doors of real families who lived real lives. I think it's such a powerful way to remember the victims of the Holocaust. (https://www.npr.org/2012/05/31/153943491/stumbling-upon-miniature-memorials-to-nazi-victims?t=1559052875464 for more information)
Kralingse Plas & Bos
We had some weirdly warm weeks during February, and whenever the temperature was hospitable enough, Ollie and I would bike to Kralingse Bos! It became our happy place amidst a move that hadn't gone as planned and the loneliness of missing Ryan while he was at class until late at night. Flash forward to now, and yep, we somehow love it even more.
Kralingse Plas (the lake) is surrounded by Kralingse Bos (the forest), which has biking/walking/equestrian paths weaving all throughout it, plus three or four playgrounds, several restaurants, a petting zoo, and a deer farm. We still need to tour the working windmills!
The dozens of footbridges are always a hit with Oliver. Throw allll the sticks!
It's perfect.
Always so happy when we can have Ryan with us!
This was during his stick phase (see his left hand), when he always had to have a stick in his hand. This ended about a month ago. The end of an era. 😢
The other gorgeous parks
Rozenburg definitely received elevated status in Oliver's eyes
when some DIGGERS showed up one day!!!
Our personal fav is Ypenhof. An estate once belonging to a Dutch shipbuilder in the 1800s, and now a public green space. It couldn't be any closer to us and it is super super well taken care of, rarely busy at all, and full of neat trails and bridges over some gorgeous ponds. Also all the trees have tags with their species written on them! I love that.
^^ Investigating some cypress knees.
^^Walking like a kitty, obviously.
Nature walk treasures! Pinecone is like his favorite word these days...
And his favorite fact to recite is "Aycohns come fromma OOK tree!" I'm so proud.
How gorgeous is that glassy water?!
The playgrounds!
There are "speeltuins" scattered all over Kralingen. Some are free, some you pay like .50 euro to get in. So many of them have bathrooms and some have snack stands and shady places to eat. I love Dutch playgrounds!
Something I love about Dutch culture is the emphasis on enjoying life and doing so playfully! The playgrounds here show that. Honestly, US playgrounds seem sissy in comparison to these, and this is why: Dutch playgrounds still have a lot of the structures that have disappeared from US playgrounds due to the playground getting blamed for a kid getting hurt. Here, if the kid gets hurt, it's just how life goes, and there's not a mad scramble to place blame and make someone pay. I love that philosophy.
Pushing some "buttons" in his fire engine.
I'm sure I'll have a Part Two to this love story as the year goes on, but that's just the start. We love our neighborhood!
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