Look out over Rotterdam and the river, feel the salt air coming from the North Sea, and watch countless cargo ships motor by and you might just get an idea how vital the sea is to this Dutch city. And one of the best ways to get a feel for the role the sea has played in Rotterdam’s history is to visit the Maritime Museum, says Tomas Mowlam

Right on the river at Leuvehaven 1, Waterstad, the museum covers the entire port’s history.

Rotterdam first flourished as a vital Spanish port, then in the Spanish Netherlands, during the religious wars of the 16th Century.

After the long war against Spain for independence, the new Netherlands transformed itself into a rich and powerful merchant nation. The Dutch navy ranged through the East Indies, exploring strange new lands and making a fortune in the process.

Rotterdam remained a vital port, but was savagely bombed by the Luftwaffe during WWII as a warning to resisters. Today it is the busiest container port in Europe and the world’s seventh largest port.

There is plenty for the kids to enjoy, learn and play with including the museum ship, the Buffel, a Dutch Naval Frigate from 1868.

New exhibitions running include Animals on board. A look at how animals have crossed oceans, hitching a lift on boats. The family exhibition gives you a chance to “hoist a cow onto the quay, help look after the animals, play the droppings game and shell out for a dodo drumstick at meal time in the galley.”

MainPort Live brings the grandeur of the old back to the centre of the city. As the port has grown it has moved farther and farther from the heart of the city, MainPort Live brings the hustle and bustle back to the many stately ships moored in the river in the centre of town.

Glamour on the Waves exhibition looks at the classier side of life on the ocean wave, with six luxury boat interiors from the past century of luxury boat building.

Open 10am -5pm Tuesday to Saturday, 11am-5pm Sunday.

Image Credit: JeHu68

Tags: Netherlands, P&O Ferries, Uncategorized by Gabriel Grant
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Why on earth would the French be trying to claim Calais as English? Peter Moore investigates

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On the first day of her last year in her miserable reign as Queen of England, Mary Tudor – or Bloody Mary, as she was to be remembered – woke up to discover that Calais had been lost to the French.

It was a desperate blow. Calais was to the Tudors what Gibraltar became to Georgians during the empire-building days later on. It was a toe-hold on the Continent: a place for plotting, for trading, for spying and for peacocking. And in 1558 – for the first time in a good few hundred years – it was gone.

‘When I am dead and opened,’ the terminal Queen complained to her doctor shortly before she died, ‘you shall find Philip (the Spanish King and her husband) and Calais lying in my heart.’

Any sensible person would have concluded that Calais had been lost forever. But four hundred and fifty two years later, in one of this year’s more peculiar twists, a number of French politicians are attempting to realign Calais’ identity as ‘British.’ And what’s more, they are doing it without being asked.

Their motivation for such an odd move is to cash in on the expected millions that will be accompanying the Olympic Games into London in 2012. Calais, a number of town councillors have asserted, is a perfect destination for hundreds of travelling athletes, fans and journalists.

‘We are the south of England and because we’re the south of England it’s normal that we would associate ourselves with this extraordinary event,’ claimed Dominique Dupilet, the chairman of the Pas de Calais regional council.

Mr. Dupilet is at the centre of a drive to rebrand the town in anticipation of the Games. New hotels are being constructed alongside expensive training facilities, bars and restaurants.

Moreover, Mr. Dupilet contends that as Calais is perfectly served by a continuous flow of ferries and trains that it excellently positioned to carry visitors into London in record speed.

‘It will take no more time to get to events than if you’re in North London,’ he told the Times.

What might appear to be a rather far-fetched plan has already achieved a touch of validity after officials signed a contract with Chad’s boxing, wrestling, judo and athletics teams. More recently the canoe and kayak teams from Uzbekistan and Senegal also added their names to the list.

It is a peculiar story and one which reminds us that national identities are no longer fixed – but fluid. We now live in a world where a city or town might be willing to swap it allegiance or identity for a short space of time in return for a few pennies and a bit of attention.

Goodness knows what Mary Tudor would make of that.

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image credit: LordFerguson

Tags: Britain, France, Lifestyle, P&O Ferries, Uncategorized by Peter Moore
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As the weather starts to get really cold, embrace the festive chill with a visit to Bruges and the Ijs Sculpturen Festival writes Tomas Mowlam.

The festival brings amazing ice and snow sculptures each year to the centre of town, and this year’s theme is the film Ice Age 3.

Follow the adventures of Sid the Sloth, mammoths Manny and Ellie, sabre-tooth tiger Diego, and Buck the swashbuckling one-eyed weasel and all the other cheeky critters, through a magical world of ice, snow and light, that kids will love.

The sculptures are rendered in blocks of snow and ice inside a massive tent chilled to -6°C.

The artists come from China, Canada, the United States, Russia, Sweden, Finland, the Ukraine, The Czech Republic, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium.

They use chainsaws, drills, hammers and chisels to cut, shape, carve and polish over 300 tonnes of ice and 400 tonnes of snow into the entire world of Ice Age. Blocks of ice can even be ‘welded’ by using an iron to melt the surfaces together.

The level of detail that goes into organising the festival is amazing, for example the forklift trucks used to move the blocks run on gas, so that no soot from exhausts can discolour the ice.

The ice used to be shipped in from Swedish Lapland, but the artists now work on ice made in West Flanders, in Belgium, in special water tanks that mean no air bubbles can form so each ice block is solid and crystal clear.

The blocks of snow, in fact finely ground ice, are packed down inside wooden moulds for three days, before being worked on.

Based in central Bruges at Buiten Boninvest, it’s just five minutes from the famous Christmas market and ice rink.

It is €13 for adults, €11 for concessions, €9 for kids and under fours get in free.

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Image Credit: icesclupture.be

Tags: Belgium, P&O Ferries, Uncategorized by tmowlam
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