Maritime Museum Harbour: experience how the port of Rotterdam once began!
The Maritime Museum has the oldest and largest museum harbour in the Netherlands, in the place where the port of Rotterdam once began. Our historic ships and special guest ships are moored here. You can discover the secret of maritime crafts and shipbuilding in our workshops.
To start your visit to the museum harbour properly, you first go to our lighthouse, where you can learn about how the Port of Rotterdam grew to be the largest in Europe. Enjoy a lunch, cup of coffee or drinks at the Lage Licht museum café, with a view of the harbour.
Maritime crafts in our workshops
In our workshops, which you can find in the Leuve Pavilion, maritime crafts are put in the spotlights. The sparks fly around at our smith’s demonstration and you can see how we keep our museum fleet in perfect condition. Discover what it takes to build a ship. Meanwhile, welders and carpenters are at work live at the workbenches. Here you can feel, see and smell the maritime world from up close. Can you smell the sawdust?
The Maritime Museum is the historic heart of the Maritime District, the area in the middle of the city centre, where the port of Rotterdam once began. In this place, high-rise buildings and maritime history are right next to each other. Here you can find unique sailing heritage and activities on and around the water on a waterfront with skyscrapers. Together with a large number of businesses, organisations, artists, educational institutions, the Rotterdam Port Authority and the Municipality of Rotterdam, we want to develop the Maritime District further in the years to come and turn it into an attractive maritime-based place to spend time in the city centre for people of Rotterdam, day trippers and tourists. A place to live, do business and relax.
Dynamic museum harbour
We are working on creating a dynamic Maritime Museum Harbour that vessels can enter and leave, where maritime events for young and old are held and where we are working on a unique collection of floating cultural heritage. We want to link the museum building, the quays and the jetties together and ensure that visitors in this area can experience the port heritage from the water. We invite special ships and maritime guests to our jetty and offer a unique sailing programme on our museum ships during the summer months.
Hotspot in the heart of Rotterdam: the Leuve Pavilion
In the Maritime Museum Harbour, you can also find the Leuve Pavilion (Leuvepaviljoen), providing workshops and more, where employees and volunteers of the Maritime Museum roll up their sleeves and maritime crafts are in the spotlights.
The Leuve Pavilion also has the Port Pavilion of Rotterdam Port Authority, where you can get to know the port of today and everything you can experience there.
Round trips: A unique way to discover the port
We offer the chance to hire a historic museum vessel for an exclusive tour of the Port of Rotterdam. It is a unique experience on a ship with a story to tell.
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