Witte De Withstraat
We had the privilege of visiting “Witte de withstraat” for about a week and it seemed like the place to be if you live in or are visiting Rotterdam.
We stayed at the “King Kong” hostel also located on Witte de Withstraat and it was a wonderful experience.
(The Partytrail recommends you stay in Hostels while traveling, it’s a fun and inexpensive way of lodging while traveling and as a plus you get to meet other travelers to explore the city with).
We decided to visit Rotterdam on a whim, thus arriving at Rotterdam Centraal (the main train station in Rotterdam) only to realize at the station that we had no accommodations booked in the city.
A quick google search of “Rotterdam + Hostel” served up a bunch of links, fortunately King Kong hostel caught our eye amongst google’s returned search results. We hailed a cab at the train station and decided to give the place a try.
Travel Tip: Rotterdam centraal is a 15 to 20 minute walk from Witte De Withsraat. We would later realize this only after coughing up about 20 Euros for a cab. (What a waste of good beer money!!!). To avoid making this mistake, take a bus, tram or simply use the pedestrian feature on google maps to find your way by foot.
Making things worse was the fact that customer service seemed a foreign concept to our cab driver.
On approaching Witte de Withstraat he hastily dropped us off at a construction site close to the King Kong hostel and in an aloof manner he uttered the word “go” waving his hand towards the street as he plucked our bags out of his trunk and dropped them off on the side of the road.
Shrugging this weird interaction between driver and passenger off, we decided to proceed towards Witte de Withstraat and check into our hostel.
Bags in hand and still a little irked by the cab driver, it would not take long before we were distracted by some signs hanging in the street on Witte de Withstraat. The signs read “Zwart”, “Witte”, and “Cool”. Partytrail is yet to decipher the symbolism behind why the signs were hung up on the street but we would later find out that they translate to “Black”, “White” and our guess is “Cool” in English.
One thing that was consistent with Rotterdam during our stay in the city is that it has an artsy feel to it that seems to permeate most of the city and Witte De Withstraat was not exempt.
While walking from the construction site to the hostel we would find that there were bars, restaurants, and café’s on both sides of Witte de Withstraat and it immediately became obvious that our stay here was going to be fun.
We checked in, by now, it was evening and we decided it was best to take a nap before heading out to explore Witte de Withstraat. Before doing so, we decided to ask the receptionist at the hostel some questions about our new surroundings.
Dante: “Hi! Miss, do you know good places to party on Mondays in Rotterdam”?
Lady: “Of course, there are tons bars on this street (Witte de Withstraat) but since it’s Monday everyone goes to the Irish Bar on Rodezand. It’s called Paddy Murphy’s Irish Pub.”.
Dante: “When you say everyone you mean locals”?
Lady: “Uhm, Yeah!!”
Dante: “Awesome!! We were looking to have an authentic Dutch experience (We would later on ponder why we thought an Irish bar was the right destination for “an authentic Dutch experience”).”
Lady: “Well you and your friends can come to the reception at 9pm. Some people from the hostel should be heading out there after visiting some pubs on “Witte de Withstraat”.”
True to her earlier assertion, at 9 pm, there was a small crowd gathered in the lobby of the hostel and we headed to our first bar next door to the hostel. The first bar we headed to was…
Café De Witte Aap
Witte de Withstraat 78, 3012 BS Rotterdam, Netherlands
+31 10 414 9565
We had some drinks at the pub and we were quite impressed with it. They were actually the recipient of the “2009 best bar in Rotterdam award”. After hitting up a couple more bars close by, we decided to head to the Irish pub across the highway.
It was there that we got to meet a lot of locals and in fact one of the hostelers in our group met a beautiful local Dutch girl with whom he would spend most of the night dancing…
In Partying in the Netherlands (IX) we’ll let you in on what happened at Paddy Murphy’s and give you some more info on bars, restaurants and cafe’s on Witte de Withstraat…….
Next Post
Photo Credit
We Value Your Opinion
- Top Things To Do In Kigali Rwanda - February 24, 2019
- An Odyssey with Giants at Carnaval in Eindhoven - March 7, 2018
- Everything You Need To Know About Traveling To Curacao - January 4, 2018