Paris to Rotterdam by Eurostar train
This is blog post #7 from our tour of Europe. On Saturday, June 28th, we had reservations on the 10:25 high-speed Eurostar train from Paris to Rotterdam, where had one night booked at the Hotel New York. Now that we’ve seen Rotterdam, we’ll be at the Hotel New York for 3 nights the next time we have a cruise that starts there (likely a British Iles one).
We had a shuttle driver pick us up at our hotel at 09:00, and at at 09:25 arrived at Paris Gare du Nord 25 minutes later.
O!M!G! there were a lot of people doing coming and going things!
At the train station, you’re on your own to figure things out. The arrival/departure signs only said that our train would leave from Hall 1. We saw a Eurostar unloading and mostly because it was an interesting spot for photography, found a place to stand that was out of the way at that track.
A 3-second lull in the flow of people allowed me to get a clear shot of the locomotive.
Twenty minutes before our scheduled departure, the signs changed to tell us that we would leave from Track 10. Completely by luck, that’s where we had chosen to stand.
Our reserved seat was at the far end of the train, and it was quite a trek!
We were soon settled into the very comfortable car.
Seating is fairly spacious, and as well as a large fold-down tray, there are power and USB plugs and a cup holder. Large luggage goes into a rack at one end of each car (you handle your own), with small items above your seat or at your feet, just like on a plane.
While the train can hit 300 km/h, the average speed is about 160, so the landscape changes rapidly. It takes 2 hours 37 minutes to cover the 370 km from Paris to Rotterdam. The first en route photo was shot at 10:38, 13 minutes from Gare du Nord.
The French countryside is lovely, with a nice roll to the terrain, the vast majority of which is in crops.
There are a lot of wind turbines.
Despite the number of visually obnoxious wind turbines, over 70% of electricity in France is produced by nuclear power.
The outskirts of Brussels, Belgium, at 11:45.
Some heavy work being done in Brussels.
A brief look at Antwerp at 12:25.
Google was no help in giving me the name of this large river.
Navigating Rotterdam Centraal Station wasn’t simple, but we eventually found a way to get out to the street, where we decided to take a taxi to our hotel.
The Hotel New York is only 3.2 km away from the train station but felt much longer and cost almost 40 Euros (I’m not going to try to figure out why, but I thought Cathy and the driver were going to duke it out).
Checking in at the hotel was a much more pleasant experience. The building was built as the head office of Holland America Lines, and is wonderful! This is the lobby.
We were offered an upgrade to Room 204, and it was perfect. I immediately wished we were saying for 3 nights, not just one.
Here are a couple of the views from our balcony.
Right below us was the outdoor patio section of the hotel’s large restaurant.
The restaurant was our next destination – my steak frite was extremely good, as was Cathy’s massive burger.
I went for a fairly lengthy wander in the area, probably putting on about 3 km. First, a look at the hotel from every angle.
The large foot bridge called Rijnhavenbrug provides access to what appears to be a very trendy area.
A view of Rotterdam from the other side of Rijnhavenbrug.
I then retraced my steps and continued in the other direction, past the cruise port where the Rotterdam, a sister ship to the one we’d be boarding, was docked.
I love this mural.
The main chapter in our Adventure story began the next morning when we boarded the Nieuw Statendam for a 28-day sailing on an itinerary that Holland America advertises as a “Legendary Voyage.”
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