Mr Incognito's psycling adventure

[Mr Incognito]

Back in the promised land, not even going to Amsterdam, and I am light on tech as I have to carry everything with me!

I am in Rotterdam for one night only, staying at a funky pod hotel thing. I felt like a proper old **** as it was sign in via an app etc, but looks comfy enough and I just want somewhere to crash.



First things first, it is take away only in all the coffeeshops I have been to so far. The guy in 4 Floors told me that most of his customers sit by the canal or in the park to consume.



So I have done a quick buy and fly just a random selection.....

[HitTheNorth]

Yeah! Saddle up with Mr I!! Nice one bro, have a great trip

[Mr Incognito]

Ta

I have been to the four coffeeshops @hit the north mentioned in his thread, taken a pic and bought something. I was really hoping that 4 Floors would have a floor for hanging out, but it doesn't. Buy And Fly only....

I started out in Pluto, a couple of streets away, and both looked promising. In Pluto, the setout had a large area at the front with a rolling table in the window, with skins and roaches and stuff. There were 4 booths like going into a bank in the olden days - all with glass and screens



I think there might have been a MacDonalds style big screen ordering system available. I went for "approach a vacant window" as my opening gambit and emerged with a gram of Blueberry Haze, and a 10 euro deal of Ketama Gold, a grinder and some papers and roach enough for the trip. It was pre-bagged.




Pluto was ok - decent menu, and if you are clear what you want, you will get what you want! You could buy and skin up here perfectly easily, if you just want something to stink out the park with! Pre-bagged means it's hard to check out, so I've just got a random take on relatively cheap weed and hash. For now, that's all in the stash.

Second up was Sky High. Also clearly now take away only. One little part of the counter is open, the rest has a display of stuff they sell. Bongs and pipes and adverts for skins and stuff, plus two big displays. There was a semi-heavy conversation going on in the corner, and I didn't feel that comfortable, so I took a menu pic and dashed. Should have taken more time on the pic!

[Mr Incognito]

Back round to 4 Floors, at this point hoping for a coffee and a sit down and a smoke. Helpful tender here was one of three being kept busy by a stream locals. I got 2g of Santa Maria - one of my flavourites - plus 1g of Pineapple Kush off their Cali menu, and a bit of the Hassan hash.







Witte de With was another dark window with big screens. I picked up a bit of Colombian (generic red string block weed) and a pure haze pre-roll to smoke for my lunch! I retired to the canal side and refreshed

[mafia]

Sounds lovely hope the adventure is all you want it to be

[HitTheNorth]

Nice one Mr I, intrepid reporting there. Sounds like Pluto and 4 Floors are the picks, be interested to hear how your purchases were. hope yer having a great time

[avfc-herbalist]

Interesting about the buy n fly situation, Rotterdam is on my list to go to but I don't think I'll be rushing there anytime soon.

I'm guessing Rotterdam isn't targeting public consumption like Amsterdam is at the moment, especially if the budtenders are telling you to blaze in parks or a canal side.

Thanks mate Enjoy the rest of your trip

[Mr Incognito]

Back home now after 250 km in the saddle, starting with an afternoon in Rotterdam, and ending with an afternoon in Haarlem.

The cycling was amazing - I am not very fit, but an ebike made the going pretty easy! The Netherlands are just so well set up for going by bike, with most of the distance being on cycle tracks that are either next to roads, or are just there for their own sakes. We saw Rotterdam and the port areas, huge man-made features including dams, bridges, tunnels, locks and canals, and rode next to beautiful canals, dodging dragonflies and admiring the water lilies. After heading south from Rotterdam, we made our way to Willemstad, Renesse and Brielle, before crossing the Maas through the Benelux Cycle Tunnel and making our way to Delft. My friends returned from there to the Rotterdam-Hull ferry, and I headed north to Leiden, then jumped on the train to Haarlem. An absolute blast, made all the better with my Rotterdam supplies and the many bars and cafes we visited along the way.

For the coffeeshop fan, heading south from Rotterdam is leaving civilisation - there are no coffeeshops in the area we went to, and I didn't notice anyone else smoking. Delft and Haarlem are more interesting. I didn't get to go round the shops in Delft - I had done 225km at that stage, and my legs weren't up to trawling back into town. Its a nice place though - lively and with quite a student population. I saw one coffeeshop that was open - The Future. Haarlem is pretty well covered for reviews - the 420 crowd were there a few weeks ago. I had a pleasant afternoon in Willie Wortel's Indica - the BT was friendly and there was company at the bar. I had a gram of a sativa - can't remember the strain and I didn't get a menu snap - plus water and coffee, and after a chat with the locals settled into a corner to listen to the test match.

After returning my ebike, I headed up to Birdy. A gram of bio weed, mint tea, lots more water and a cheese'n'ham tosti and it was time to get back to Schiphol and fly home.

[Lemming]

Fantastic stuff! Thanks @Mr Incognito.
Great info and pictures.
Special thanks for the menus, which I posted on FBN's menu site. Hope that's OK.

[HitTheNorth]

Nice one Mr I sounds like a blast
Lieden is nice isn't it? I seem to recall coffeeshops only being open 4-10pm or similar. Quite a few of them though.
Thanks for the menu pics will be well handy for my upcoming visit, much appreciated

[Mr Incognito]

Fantastic stuff! Thanks @Mr Incognito.
Great info and pictures.
Special thanks for the menus, which I posted on FBN's menu site. Hope that's OK.

Thanks @Lemming - was hoping the pics would get to FBN!

[Mr Incognito]

Nice one Mr I sounds like a blast
Lieden is nice isn't it? I seem to recall coffeeshops only being open 4-10pm or similar. Quite a few of them though.
Thanks for the menu pics will be well handy for my upcoming visit, much appreciated

Yes Leiden shops don't open until early evening. I went there a few years back and made the mistake of turning up too soon (like going to Utrecht on a Monday, when the most interesting places are shut!). There is lots to do in the daytime if you are into museums and culture, and once they opened the coffeeshops proved good too! But if you are looking for a smokey day out, Leiden probably not the place - Den Haag or Haarlem would be my recommendation!

[Mr Incognito]

Looking back on my purchases in Rotterdam, the best weed was that Pineapple Kush from 4 Floors. It was sold as Cali at €11 - very cheap if that's genuine - and was hard hitting and tasty. The two I bits of hash I got were OK but not spectacular - got me there, but without the heritage hash flavours I crave! Santa Maria had the taste I was looking for but was little left over nugs and a bit tired - not their best selling strain, I would say! Pluto's menu is worth more of an explore - the bits I got there were fine if unspectacular, and I just went for random picks.

I was surprised to see Truffles on sale in Rotterdam coffeeshops, and the area round 4 Floors/Witte de With had several smart shops that seem to be new. They aren't on the ACD map at the moment, anyway. Truffles/shrooms seemed to be what they were selling. It's a pretty happening bit of Rotterdam - lots of art and edgy stuff going on, nice bars and interesting places to eat. The pod hotel I stayed in was really good and cheap, and has branches in Amsterdam and Copenhagen. Comfortable and convenient, app-based with a smart bracelet thing to get self service drinks and eats and to get into the place and your "room".

[Lemming]

the area round 4 Floors/Witte de With had several smart shops that seem to be new.

If you happened to get the names and/or addresses of these places, please let me know. I'd love to add them to the directory.

[Ghost]

What a quality and excellent travel report @Mr Incognito thanks for sharing it