Where to stay in Rotterdam: the best neighbourhoods and hotels

Rotterdam Centraal sets the tone, its pointed metal canopy aimed at the city like an arrow. Walk out of it and the centre is straight ahead: the concert hall of De Doelen, the pedestrian shopping streets around the Lijnbaan and Beurs, and a dense patch of cafés, cocktail bars and restaurants that keeps going well after midnight.

This is the easiest place to stay, especially for a short break. Hotels are mostly four-star and modern, from big international names within a five-minute walk of the platforms to younger design hotels with more personality. Everything else in the city is a few stops away by metro or tram. It is busy and urban; for water views or quiet, look further south or west.

East of the centre, around Blaak station, Rotterdam shows off. The yellow Cube Houses balance on their corners above the road. Next to them, the Markthal arches over its food stalls, its ceiling painted with fruit and flowers the size of cars. Behind both, the Oude Haven is lined with historic barges and café terraces, a rare corner where the old port survives.

Hotels are a short walk from all of it. Some sit among the boutiques and coffee bars of the Meent, others beside the quiet water of the Wijnhaven with a terrace on the quay. It is a good choice for a first visit, with Blaak’s trains and metro close by and the main shopping streets a few minutes on foot. Saturdays are lively, when the big outdoor market sets up on the square.

Cross the Erasmus Bridge and you land on the Wilhelminapier, where the great liners once left for America. The warehouses and shipping offices have been joined by a line of skyscrapers, and the mix is thrilling: the turreted former headquarters of the Holland America Line is now a much-loved hotel and café, while next door a design hotel occupies part of the vast glass De Rotterdam building, with floor-to-ceiling windows over the river.

A footbridge leads on to Katendrecht, once the sailors’ quarter and now one of the city’s favourite places to eat, where a 1950s ocean liner is permanently moored as a hotel. Stay on this side for views, atmosphere and a sense of the port. The centre is about two kilometres away, a short metro hop, a tram over the bridge or, best of all, a water taxi.

South-west of the centre is the part of Rotterdam locals would probably choose for you. Witte de Withstraat is the city’s liveliest street, a run of bars, galleries and restaurants with tables out on the pavement in all weathers. At its western end, the Museumpark gathers the big art institutions around a garden, and beyond that is Het Park, with the Euromast tower rising from the trees.

Hotels here range from an elegant long-established address by Eendrachtsplein metro to serviced apartments on leafy Mauritsweg and a five-star in the old port at the Leuvehaven, with a spa looking over the harbour. The Erasmus Bridge and the river-cruise piers are a short walk away. It is central without feeling commercial, and you will never be short of somewhere for a drink.

Delfshaven is the Rotterdam that got away. This small harbour district escaped the wartime bombing, and its canal is still lined with gabled warehouses, a windmill and the church where the Pilgrim Fathers prayed before sailing for the New World. Around it, the west of the city is a multicultural, residential patchwork of long avenues and neighbourhood restaurants.

It is not a big hotel district, which is the point. You will find a small family hotel that has stood on tree-lined Mathenesserlaan since 1936, a playful art hotel and a contemporary four-star in Delfshaven itself. Trams and the metro run into the centre in minutes. Choose it for peace, lower prices and a more local feel; night owls should stay nearer Witte de Withstraat.

Schiedam is Rotterdam’s neighbour to the west and its opposite in almost every way. The town made its fortune from jenever, Dutch gin, and its compact old centre is all canals, drawbridges and brick warehouses, overlooked by the tallest traditional windmills in the world, built high to catch the wind above the distillery roofs.

It makes a quiet, good-value base with a flavour of old Holland that Rotterdam itself cannot offer. Places to stay include small hotels and a bed and breakfast in town, and a family-friendly four-star in green surroundings on the edge of town with a heated outdoor pool. Rotterdam’s centre is a short train or metro ride away, and drivers will find parking far easier.