Maritime Museum Rotterdam, Maritime museum in Rotterdam, Netherlands
The Maritime Museum Rotterdam is a maritime museum that collects and displays around 850,000 objects. The collection spans six centuries and includes ships, sea charts, scale models, and navigation instruments.
The museum was founded in 1874 to preserve Dutch maritime heritage and naval history. It grew from the desire to document the important role shipping played in the country's past.
The collection reflects how shipping shaped Rotterdam and Dutch life, from trade routes to shipbuilding traditions that still matter today. Visitors can see how the sea influenced the way people worked and lived across generations.
The museum is located at Leuvehaven 1 and opens Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The building is fully accessible for wheelchairs and easy to reach.
The museum holds the Mataró model, the oldest known ship model in Europe, dating back to the Middle Ages. This rare artifact reveals how people designed and built ships long before modern times.
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