Southeast of the station, the Lijnbaan was Europe's first pedestrianized shopping precinct, completed in 1953. Beyond here lies some of the city centre's more fanciful modern architecture, and the seventeenth-century mansion at Korte Hoogstraat 31 that houses the Schielandshuis Museum (Tues-Fri 10am-5pm, Sat & Sun 11am-5pm; a?¬2.70), featuring displays on the city's history. A couple of minutes south, the old city docks are enclosed by the Boompjes, a former sea dyke that's now a major motorway leading southwest to the Euromast , on a rather lonely park corner beside the Nieuwe Maas, originally just a drab, grey observation platform thrown up in 1960, but to which was later added the 185m-high Spacetower (daily: April-Sept 10am-7/10.30pm; Oct-March 10am-5pm; a?¬7), which gives spectacular views. North of here, the Boymans-Van Beuningen Museum , Mathenesserlaan 18-20 (Tues-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 11am-5pm; a?¬5.70; www.boijmans.rotterdam.nl ), is Rotterdam's one great attraction, accessible from Centraal Station by tram #5 or walkable from Eendrachtsplein metro. It's an enormous museum, with a superb collection of work by the Surrealists DalA­, Magritte, Ernst and de Chirico. The Van der Vorm collection on the first floor contains work by Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso, Gauguin, CA©zanne and Munch, and a series of small galleries alongside house paintings by most of the significant artists of the Barbizon and Hague Schools. Among the earlier canvases are several by Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Bruegel the Elder's mysterious Tower of Babel , some Jan Steens, Gerrit Dou's The Quack and Rembrandt's intimate Titus at his Desk .

If nothing in the city centre can be called exactly picturesque, Delfshaven goes some way to make up for it. A good 45-minute walk southwest of Centraal Station - fifteen minutes by tram #6 or #9 - it was from here that the Pilgrims set sail for America in 1620, changing to the more reliable Mayflower in Plymouth. Delfshaven was only incorporated into Rotterdam in 1886 and managed to survive World War II virtually intact. It was long a neglected area, but the town council has recognized its tourist potential and has set about conserving and restoring the locality. The Dubbelde Palmboom Museum , Voorhaven 12 (Tues-Fri 10am-5pm, Sat & Sun 11am-5pm; a?¬2.70), once a jenever distillery, is now a historical museum with a wide-ranging if unexceptional collection of objects pertaining to life in the Maas delta.