yk

What's the best way (by public transportation) to get there from the train station?

According to Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen's website, there are several methods:

1. RET tram number 5 to Witte de Withstraat/Museumpark
2. tram 4 to Eendrachtsplein
3. subway to the Eendrachtsplein stop
4. bus 32 to Rochussenstraat

Any comments regarding which route to take?

yk

ttt

Can anybody help?

artstuff

Hi yk,

I am looking at my Falk map of Rotterdam (bought in 1998 from the VVV), so some of the lines, maybe, have changed, but....

1 & 2) Tram #4 and Tram #5 leaves from Centraal Station, where you can get off at the Eendrachtsplein and walk down to the Museum. At Eendrachtsplein, tram #4 heads west and Tram #5 continues south along the Eendrachtsweg, intersecting with Museumpark/Witte de Withstraat, but my map does NOT show a tram stop here (that doesn't mean that one wasn't added after my map was printed).

3) Taking the Metro actually might be the closest stop for you, but I don't think it's that much closer than the tram to Eendrachtsplein. I've always preferred to ride above ground, if possible, then I get to see the area I'm travelling through.

4) I don't see that bus 32 runs from Centraal Station, but it can be picked up outside NS Station Blaak. You can run it right over to Rochussenstraat, just past Eendrachtsplein, and walk from there.

If you do decide to take the bus from Station Blaak, please take a few minutes to look around the area at the amazing modern architecture. The train station looks like a flying saucer, there is a large apartment building known as "the Pencil", and then there is the Kijk Kubus, the tumbling block apartments, which can be quickly toured through.

Enjoy your planning...pretty soon you are going to feel consumed with information...if you haven't already. Peace.

Robyn >-

yk

Hi Robyn-

Thanks again. I hope I didn't burden you with too many Qs. I think I'd prefer taking the tram.

A friend forwarded me 2 NYT articles on Rotterdam & its architecture. I think I will have some time to walk around Rotterdam a bit. Although I am a little bit concerned about safety based on what I've read on this board (I'm female traveling solo.)

111op

Aren't you going to be in Rotterdam in the daytime? And the sun should be setting later these days anyway.

Larry

http://www.9292ov.nl/ ...is a pretty cool site. You enter any two Dutch adresses or train stations and it returns the best public transportation route.

When I entered Rotterdam Centraal and Museum Park it came back with tram #5 taking 12 minutes with many trams per hour.

yk

Thanks, Larry.

yk

I ended up taking tram #5. It was the 2nd stop and is about 1/2 a block from the museum. Tram #4 would have required walking a bit further.

The train station in Rotterdam is ugly, and a huge construction project is going on within and in front of the building.

It is an excellent museum (even better with its current Dali exhibit). Anyone who plans to go to Rotterdam should not miss it. Here is a section from my trip report:
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Author: yk
Date: 05/29/2005, 06:20 pm
May 26, Day 7
Part II - Rotterdam, Boijmans van Beuningen

Rotterdam was not on my itinerary until 111op mentioned Boijmans van Beuningen Museum to me. I checked the museum's website and decided that there is NO WAY I could skip it.

I took the 1:23pm train from Amsterdam Central Station. An hour later, I was at Rotterdam station. The train station is one (very) ugly building, remindes me of soviet-era commnunist style. There is a huge construction project going on in front of the station, so all the tram stations were moved - about 150 yards from the station entrance.

I took tram #5 to the museum (2 stops) and arrived at 2:30pm. Normally the admission is free with NMC, but as they have a special exhibit on Dali, I had to pay a € 5 supplement. (Normal admission € 8, € 12 for the Dali special.)

While everyone rushed to the Dali exhibit, I headed upstairs for its permanent collection. I found the desk for the audioguide, which was free.

I started with the Old Masters section. Highlights include:
- van Eyck brothers' Three Marys at the Open Sepulchre
- Geertgen tot Sint Jans' Glorification of the Virgin - here, Mary and Jesus are surrounded by 3 rings of angels playing musical instruments. G t SJ painted every single instrument known during his time.
- Bosch's The Pedlar, aka The Vagabond or The Prodigal Son - the audioguide was excellent in explaining in detail the significance of each element in the painting. Every attribute on the house in the background (a brothel) is very interesting
- Bruegel's Tower of Babel - this is the most famous piece of the museum. Bruegel painted 3 (not 2) copies of Tower of Babel. The earlier (and larger) copy is in Vienna. Another copy is a miniature copy painted on a piece of ivory. Its current whereabouts is unknown. This piece shows the Tower in a more close-up view, and does not have the scene of King Nimrod. There are no less than 1000 figures depicted in the painting, all in minute detail. The audioguide also pointed out the 2 trails of white and red on the side of the tower, depicting the colored bricks falling off from the top and staining the walls the respective colors. It also pointed out the tower is a lot redder at the top, indicating newly built; whereas at the bottom of the tower, its color is similar to the surroundings, indicating that it has been built a long time ago and has faded its color.
- Rubens rooms - one room consists of oil sketches which he made as studies for his larger compositions. I took a quick look and spotted a sketch of Martyrdom of St Lieven which I had see a few days earlier in Brussels.
- the usual Dutch masters (ie, more Avercamp and Saenredam)
- Rembrandt's painting of Titus

Before I continue, I have to go back and talk about Geertgen tot Sint Jans. Apart from the piece I mentioned above, there were a few more paintings by him. One large piece was The Holy Kinship. I was perplexed. I thought the painting is at Rijksmuseum, and thought it was odd that he had 2 pieces with the same name. It wasn't until I went back to the galleries a 2nd time when I saw a posted sign: 22 paintings from Rijsmuseum are on loan at Boijmans during its renovation. When I looked at Holy Kinship's sign, yes, it is the piece that normally is at Rijksmuseum. Another life mystery solved!

After the Old Masters section, I moved on chronologically to the Impressionist section - apart from the paintings, there are sculptures by Rodin and Maillol.

As I was entering one of the gallery rooms, my heart stopped. In the middle of the floor, there was a man climbing up through a hole in the floor board! On closer inspection, it was actually a wax sculpture. I suppose this is some artist's idea of a joke.

Boijmans van Beuningen has a good collection of Magritte's work, including The Red Model, Not to be Reproduced.

I walked quickly through the modern/contemporary art section. I have yet to learn to appreciate contemporary art. The only artist I recognized was Dan Flavin with his signature florescent light fixture.

After seeing the permanent collections, I went to the Dali exhibit. I made the assumption this was just another Dali show, and I wasn't crazy about it as I had already been to 2 Dali shows this past year in Dallas area. Well, I was wrong. Titled "It's all Dali," the show focuses on his multifaceted oeuvre: in film, fashion, photography, advertising etc. In fact, there are very few of his paintings on view.

There is a 12-minute introduction movie which sums up the exhibition very well. The exhibit itself is divided up into 5 (or 6?) sections, each section focusing on 1 aspect.

The "film" section shows 3 of his movies on different screens: Un Chien Andalou, L'Age d'or, and the "Dream" sequence in Spellbound.

The "fashion" section includes the clothes he designed for Elsa Schiaparelli: a shoe-shaped hat, a lobster dress etc.

The "advertising" section shows commercials he had made, including one for Alka-Seltzer. He also printed his own newspaper called "Dali News" which I thought was quite ingenious.

The "photography" section displays photos he had made with famous photograhers - images of his surreal world. One was a photo of a skull constructed with 7 naked women's bodies. He also worked with photographer Philippe Halsman and produced the Atomica series, in which Dali himself, 3 cats, and a bucket of water all appear floating in mid-air. Pretty amazing stuff.

There was a lot more on view than I can include in here, but the exhibit is very well-done.

By the time I was through the exhibit, it was almost closing time for the museum (6pm). I was so glad that I visited it. Definitely a must-see for any art buff.

Missed:
- I'm embarrased to say that I had missed the entire Prints section. I skipped past it as I didn't think it would be interesting. It wasn't until later on when I realized it has plenty of gems. The most famous is Albrecht Durer's Study of two feet. There are plenty of other prints and drawings by all the great masters.
- Carel Fabritius self portrait

How can one visit Rotterdam and not see its Erasmus bridge? I didn't have a map of Rotterdam, but fortunately the info desk at the museum has free maps and even a Rotterdam guide. I grabbed one of each and headed out.

It was about a 10-minute walk to the bank of Maas River, where I had a good view of the bridge. Rotterdam is also famous for its architecture, with Koolhaas firm based there.
Unfortunately, I was running out of time and I also left my cliff notes (2 NYT articles) at the hotel. I hopped on one of the trams and headed back to the train station.

I caught the 6:48pm train back to Amsterdam, hoping that it will arrive on time. I have ticket to a concert by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra at 8:15pm.
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Here's the link to my entire trip report:
http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34626323