Amsterdam and Rotterdam Skate Spots: One Trip
City Guides ·
We have 134 spots mapped in Amsterdam and 32 in Rotterdam, and the two cities are an hour apart by train. Here is how to skate both on one trip.
We have 134 spots mapped in Amsterdam and 32 in Rotterdam. The two cities sit roughly 60 km apart in a straight line, which is roughly 40 minutes on the Intercity Direct and about an hour on a normal intercity. Nobody plans a Barcelona trip around a day in Tarragona, and that is fine, because Tarragona is not Rotterdam. Rotterdam is a different city that happens to be a commute away, and skating only one of them means you skated half the country.
The two datasets look nothing alike, and that is the useful part.
Amsterdam: 134 spots, three-quarters of them street
Of Amsterdam's 134 spots, 100 are Street, 15 are Park and 19 are Shop. That 74.6% street share is what a dense, old, pedestrianised city produces: not many places to build a concrete park, endless brick and granite that somebody eventually waxed.
The clustering is the reason to care. Around Rhijnspoorplein and Weesperplein, ten spots sit inside a 350 m circle. Stairs and curbs at 38 Rhijnspoorplein is the anchor; the round bench on Mauritskade is 54 m away, Metro Weesperplein is 71 m, the ledges at 1A Rhijnspoorplein 139 m, the rail at number 2 176 m, and Amstel Ledge 245 m. McKinsey on Sarphatistraat and the lowtohigh at 12 Wibautstraat close it out at 325 m and 316 m. That is a full session without unlocking your bike.
Zuidas is the other one. WTC on Zuidplein carries 18 photos, tied with Rotterdam's Skateland for the most in either dataset, and within 550 m of it you get the benches on Gustav Mahlerplein, ABN AMRO on Gustav Mahlerlaan, Rechtbank Amsterdam and the ledge at George Gershwinplein. Zuidas is the one part of Amsterdam that was built like Rotterdam, and the spot list shows it.
North of the IJ, Tt. Neveritaweg holds three in 262 m: a Bowl, the Indoor Skatepark and a ghetto spot. The Diy ghetto park on Tasmanstraat has 16 photos, third-most across the two cities. And there is a run of eight rails around Amstel station, five of them within 275 m of the one at 2149 Julianaplein, including 1 IJslandtpad at 50 m. Ghettopark on Weesperzijde 281 m out.
Then there is the rain, which matters more here than it would in Spain. Thirteen of Amsterdam's 134 spots carry the indoor flag, but that number needs unpacking before it is useful: eight of the thirteen are shops, and a shop being indoors is not news. The five that count are Noord on Aambeeldstraat, the only covered park in either city, plus four street spots you can skate in the rain: indoor garage curbs at the Olympisch Stadion, Sloterdijk Station - Spoor 9/10, Metro Weesperplein and Amsterdam Central Station. Metro Weesperplein sits 71 m from Stairs and curbs, inside the cluster above, so the rain does not necessarily end the session there.
One caveat, since it is the kind of thing that gets people soaked: the spot named Indoor Skatepark on Tt. Neveritaweg is flagged outdoor in our data. The name and the flag disagree and we have not resolved which is right, so do not plan a rainy afternoon on it.
The 19 shops are 14.2% of the city's spots. Not a wild share, but a big absolute number, and they are spread across the centre rather than pooled: Tom's skateshop on Damstraat, Ben G Skateshop, Skatestore Amsterdam on Nieuwendijk, Thisissoul across the water on Van der Pekstraat.
Rotterdam: 32 spots, and a fifth of them are parks
Rotterdam's mix inverts. Seven of 32 spots are Park, 21.9% against Amsterdam's 11.2%, and Street drops to 59.4%. There is also one Private spot, geledersplein, a category Amsterdam's dataset does not contain at all. Every one of Rotterdam's 32 spots is outdoors bar one, and the exception is a shop.
The parks are genuinely spread out, not stacked in one district. Westblaak sits in the middle of the centre with 12 photos; Bowl on Heemraadssingel is 1.5 km west, Skateland on Piekstraat 2.7 km southeast with 18 photos, another Bowl on Soetendaalsestraat 2.7 km north, a Skatepark on Oldegaarde 4.1 km south, Skatepark Hoogvliet 10.3 km southwest and a Skatepark on Siciliëboulevard 10 km northeast. Two of those need the metro. Plan accordingly.
The tightest thing in the city is the Westblaak block. Four of Rotterdam's five shops sit within 250 m of the park: Vans at 93 m, RSI on Witte de Withstraat at 138 m, Skatestore Rotterdam at 176 m and Sevenply at 242 m. Blauwe Ten on Coolsingel and the plaza +curb +gap at Museumpark are both under 500 m. Amsterdam has nothing this concentrated.
Street-wise, the Vasteland run is the other one worth walking. Hubba and rail at 6 Vasteland has Banks on Zalmstraat 82 m off, Gap and rail at 92 m, Hip and bank on Willemsplein at 104 m, Red benches at 223 m and a Gap at Terwenakker at 307 m. Around Blaak you get Wallrides and a Rail on Oostmolenstraat 245 m apart. Out east in Brainpark, Banks on K.P. van der Mandelelaan, the Manny pad on Max Euwelaan and a Rail form a 200 m triangle.
Thirty-two is not the real number
Rotterdam is under-mapped and we should say so. The two bounding boxes are almost the same size, 193 km² for Amsterdam and 215 km² for Rotterdam, so this is not a case of one city being geographically smaller. It is 0.7 spots per km² against 0.1. A city that rebuilt its entire centre in poured concrete after 1940, that has Hotel new york on Wilhelminakade and the plazas that come with that kind of architecture, does not have four times fewer skate spots than Amsterdam. It has four times fewer spots *submitted*.
The shelter numbers say the same thing. Amsterdam has five spots flagged indoor that you can actually skate; Rotterdam has none. Zero covered spots in a city built out of concrete overhangs, in a country that rains through half the year, is not a finding about Rotterdam. It is a finding about how many people have filled in the form.
Treat the 32 as a starting grid, not a map.
Doing both in one trip
Base yourself in Amsterdam and treat Rotterdam as a long day, or split the trip in half. The train makes either work. Intercity Direct runs Amsterdam Centraal to Rotterdam Centraal in about 40 minutes but carries a supplement; the regular intercity takes around an hour and does not. Both run several times an hour.
The nice accident is that Amsterdam Centraal is itself a spot. Amsterdam Central Station at 24 De Ruijterkade has a bank on Prins Hendrikkade 284 m away, Park Plaza Victoria on Damrak at 335 m, Koepelkerk at 480 m and both Skatestore Amsterdam and DC Shoes inside 550 m. The station spot is one of the five covered ones, so a delayed train and bad weather cancel each other out. You can skate until your departure and still make it.
On the other end, walk south from Rotterdam Centraal into the Westblaak block: park plus four shops plus Blauwe Ten inside half a kilometre, then Vasteland fifteen minutes further on and Wallrides at Blaak fifteen minutes east. That is a full day without transit. Add Skateland on Piekstraat if you want a second park, or Stairs and rail on Veemstraat and Stairs at Ichthushof, which sit about a kilometre from it on the way back.
If you only have one day for Rotterdam, spend it in the centre. If you have two, the second one is for the parks and for finding the spots nobody has submitted yet.