FutureLand, South Holland Province, The Netherlands

5treeisme 5:00 PM Mar 24, 2011

Watch Sea become Land
I found myself watching a show on engineering marvels which was talking about the current construction project to expand the Port of Rotterdam. The Dutch who helped engineer the Palm Island in Dubai by sucking ocean sand up and forming islands with the sand are using (in part) this same technique to make the Port of Rotterdam even more enormous than it is. When driving to FutureLand you will pass thousands of havens (ports) and as you are getting to the end, think to yourself, "They need this to be bigger?" But the port is the gateway for shipping into Europe plus I suspect that the Dutch just like projects where they reclaim land from the sea. This is a hugh project and started in 2008 and is scheduled to be completed (in part) in 2013. If you don't want to do the long drive around you can take a fast ferry catamaran to Futureland which takes about 15 minutes but does not run all the time then hop on the 113 bus. for further info go to www.ret.nl for timetables The visitor center offers many things of interest to explain what they are doing for both they young and the old. You can take the "Future Flight Experience" which allows you to soar over the port basins to the new port area. The Digital Brain Box offers up information about Maasvlakte 2 with films, images and text on a giant touch screen. Sit inside a globe and watch a film about why the port is being filmed. Watch another show on a water curtain. Upstairs is a better view of the construction with high powered cameras to view as well as another interactive display chronicling the construction's progress. More curiously you will find mammoth bones on display. The reason for this display is that when the ships go out into the ocean to suck up the sand floor to bring back to build the land, they ran into a buried heard of mammoths and their powerful machines just sucked them up from the ocean floor! For us the best part of the trip was the "train" ride on the FutureLand Express if you make reservations (the train is not free and does not run everyday so check ahead). You can make a reservation for the train at [email protected]. We went in January and it was freezing, but we planned ahead and dressed warmly and brought a blanket. In the summer on a nice day it could be quite lovely, but make sure you dress appropriately. You get on the "train" which is really a tractor bulling open air cars (see pictures). They take you out onto the new land and show you the various stages of the project. For somebody like me who finds all this stuff fascinating it was great. The children will love it as well.

4Johnny19039 5:00 PM Nov 28, 2022

Wonderful experience!
It is worth visiting the exhibition, because you can learn a lot about the Maasvlakte 2 project. You can also take a break in the cafeteria, which also offers snacks. In any case, you should book the large boat tour in advance, because on many days the available seats are sold out quickly. Unfortunately, the commentary on the boat tour is offered only in Dutch. Although there are English and German commentaries, among others, which you can access with your smartphone. But this is less exciting than a live commentary.