2022-03-02 51 4
| Wed 2 Mar 2022 in 51,4: 51.9405637, 4.3777635 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox |
Location
on the pavement in front of a residential house in Schiedam, near Rotterdam
Participants
Expedition
I was travelling again, and on 2 March this hash fell only a bike-ride away from Rotterdam, which I was currently visiting. I asked nearby Geohasher FelixTheCat if he wanted to attend, but he wasn't able to.
So I rented a bike in the afternoon, and shortly before sundown started to cycle toward the hash from the Schielandshuis in the city centre. Cyling around 10 km along streets, by and across many canals, and through several parks, I marvelled at the enjoyability of cycling in the Netherlands – wide, well-kept paths, next to no interaction with cars, no ascents, beautiful scenery even within the city, and plenty of other cyclists. A car-disliker's utopia.
I passed some swans, crossed a bridge over one of the many canals and then arrived in the hash neighbourhood. All the streets had been stripped of their asphalt for works. I found the house that had the geohash on its front pavement, but its occupants were clearly home. I tried to look casual, hung around behind their hedge for a bit, then quickly walked to the coordinates to take a selfie with Baruch and a screenshot, where they could clearly see me right in front of their living room windows. The geohash was basically right under their dustbin. Fortunately, it seems they did not notice me, and I quickly made off and went out of sight.
On my way back to the city, I watched the swans for a while and then, as it got dark, cycled 6 km to the nearby World Heritage Site of the Van Nelle Factory, a historic factory built in the 1920s for producing tea and other things, which is considered a prime example of early modern architecture and, apparently, one of the most beautiful factories in the world. The site was still open, and I was able to look inside the buildings and walk freely in places you cannot normally go at factories (and where visitors are probably not meant to wander, even here). Although I did see some people, I was not told off, not even by the gate warden. But I was not particularly impressed by the architecture, although it did seem newer than it actually was. I suspect this is one those World Heritage Sites that gets the status to represent a whole category or style of buildings as a "prime example", like the tiny and even more unimpressive Rietveld Schröder House in Utrecht I had visited a few days before.
After exiting, I noticed I would not make it in time to the free concert I had planned to attend, and instead cycled 8 km to the Walk of Fame Europe south of the centre, traversing a historic pedestrian tunnel under the Nieuwe Maas. On my way back to the hostel, I passed some of Rotterdam's many skyscrapers along the water, which are particularly picturesque in the dark. In all, I was very positively surprised by Rotterdam, which before my trip had not seemed to me a must-visit city due to its lack of an old town and scarcity of historic buildings.
Photos
will follow shortly (11 pictures & 1 video)
Achievements
Land geohash, Bicycle geohash
