Hotels in Schiedam

Schiedam is the town that made Dutch gin famous: from the eighteenth century onward its distilleries turned out so much jenever that the place earned the nickname "Black Nazareth" for the soot they produced. The legacy survives in the world's tallest traditional windmills, built to grind grain for the distillers, and in the Jenever Museum, where you can still taste the stuff. The old centre, laced with canals and lined with merchant houses, is genuinely handsome and far calmer than neighbouring Rotterdam, which sits just east and is a short train or metro ride from Rotterdam Centraal.

Be honest: Schiedam is small, nightlife is thin, and the outskirts blur into port and industrial sprawl, so many visitors treat it as a cheaper, quieter base for Rotterdam rather than a destination in itself. Rotterdam The Hague Airport is close, and with only a handful of hotels the choice is limited. Stay in or near the historic canal centre for atmosphere and an easy walk to Schiedam Centrum station.