Running through Rotterdam for III.(d)

[shermarama]

This was my first attempt at flâneuring (flâneurery?) and I decided to go for the first left, second right option, starting from home. I was running, and decided to go for the duration of a podcast I'd just downloaded, which was 28 minutes. I thought that would be quite short, but actually I still went through 33 turns and 35 different streets in that time.

Here's a table of the turns and streets.

Turn number	Turn direction	Street name
0	(Origin)	Witte de Withstraat
1	L	Kromme Elleboog
2	1R (T-junction)	Boomgaardstraat
3	L	Westblaak
4	2R	Mauritsweg
5	L	Nieuwe Binnenweg
6	2R	Gouvernestraat
7	L	Gaffeldwarsstraat
7	(road name change)	Gerrit Sterkmanplein
8	2R	Gaffelstraat
9	L	Kogelvangerstraat
10	2R (possibly 3R)	Van Speykstraat
11	L	Eerste Middellandstraat
12	2R	Henegouwerlaan
13	L	Oostervanstraat
14	2R	Duivenvoordestraat
15	L	Graaf Florisstraat
16	2R	Beatrijsstraat
17	L	Persijnstraat
18	1R (T-junction)	Heemraadsingel
19	L	Beukelsdijk
20	2R	Werkhoefstraat
21	L	Essenburgstraat
22	L	Pluimhoefstraat
22	(road name change)	Adrien Milderstraat
23	2R	Hugo Molenaarstraat
24	L	Virulyplein
25	1R (corner of square)	Tweede Virulystraat
26	R	Burgemeester Meineszlaan
27	L	Doedesstraat
28	2R	Vierambachtstraat
29	L	Van Heusdestraat
30	2R	Hooidrift
31	L	Mathenesserlaan
32	2R	Heemraadsplein
33	L	Nieuwe Binnenweg

.
As you can see, I got a bit confused with the turns in a couple of places, doing two lefts in succession in one place, and two rights in another. Where I came to junctions where I should have gone straight on but couldn't, I did the right turn early.
I've focused on the names of the streets rather than a map, because the effort of translating/decoding the Dutch probably makes me notice them much more than I would if they were in English. Also Dutch streets are often either named after a theme, a person, or a person who's part of a theme, and it can be fun to work out what the theme is. That didn't happen so much here because the route happened to take me along quite a lot of main roads, which are more likely to be named after a canal or other geographical feature (Heemraadssingel, Beukelsdijk) or have some archaically inexplicable name (Westblaak, Eerste Middellandstraat.) Also I feel sure Pluimhoefstraat and Werkhoefstraat ought to be some sort of themed set, since 'hoef' means 'hoof', I can't seem to find anything there. But picking up some of the others:

- Kromme Elleboog means 'crooked elbow'. Since it's a tiny little street that cranks around the back of my flat, this is a great name for it.
- Boomgaardstraat is Orchard Street. I didn't know that until I looked it up just now.
- Gaffel apparently means gaff, as in a gaff hook, a handy practical sailing implement; there are a lot of common sailing and boat words between Dutch and English, perhaps unsurprisingly.
- Kogelvangerstraat translates literally as 'Bullet Catcher Street'. Looking it up, kogelvanger seems to mean all sorts of things from a firing range target to a scapegoat - as in someone who takes a bullet, perhaps?
- I had no idea whether Viruly was a thing or a person, but I think Virulyplein and the street leading out of it are probably named after Adriaan Viruly, a Dutch pilot and author. He was also one of the people who fled the occupied Netherlands in 1940, going to England to fight with the Allies, and apparently the term for these was 'Engelandvaarders' or 'England paddlers', after three Dutchmen who got across the North Sea in a twelve foot boat.
 
By the end of the podcast I'd run about 4.5 km, but because the route had generally made an anti-clockwise loop (Runkeeper map), I was only about 1.5 km from home, so there were no problems getting back. Given that it's hot out there today I was running in only shorts and vest, and the path took me through some of the more Muslim bits of Rotterdam, I felt a little awkward at times. But hey, Bullet Catcher Street!

Comments

[spiralsheep]

It sounds as if you had a good flan. :-)

I like your pairing of the fancy horses and the work horses.

If it's not commemorating someone being shot then Kogelvangerstraat might have had a shot tower manufacturing ammunition? Many older cities had them, or some similar place. Birmingham has a "Gun Quarter".

[shermarama]

Thanks, it was good, yes!

It might be to do with something like that, but I can't seem to find any references, and my Dutch probably isn't good enough to find them. Everything in the centre of Rotterdam was disrupted by the 1940 bombing, too, so these things are often no longer obvious.