Golf Hotel Whiskey

Golf Hotel Whiskey: for pilots and aviation enthusiasts

The Netherlands

Rotterdam (EHRD)

Airport information

Nearest town: Rotterdam (about 15 minutes by car), The Hague (Den Haag, about 30 minutes by car), Delft (about 20 minutes by car)

Opening times: H24

Longest runway: 2200m, Asphalt

Fuel: 100LL, Jet A1

Phone: 01271 919 9000

Website: www.rotterdam-airport.nl, Wikipedia entry

Netherlands AIP with plates and airport information

Airport picture

KLM Jet Center Rotterdam

KLM Jet Center at Rotterdam Airport

Airport map

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Facilities

  • Handling: KLM Jet Center (+31 (0) 10 298 4949, www.jetcenter.nl). Expect to pay around £170-230 for a light aircraft including a return taxi trip to Delft, Rotterdam or The Hague. Handling is mandatory and expensive but very helpful. They can sort out your flight plan, weather, ground transport and so on. There is a comfortable pilot lounge and computers for accessing the internet. KLM Jet Center is very suave but a (slightly) cheaper option for handling is Avia Partners. Their handling runs to about £70 and then you have to pay a landing fee to the airport authorities of around £20. However, you don’t get the red carpet treatment and you have to go through the main terminal security checks (take the crew line, not the passenger line) and then wait for a crew bus to the plane. It takes 30m or so to get from curb to plane compared to 5m at KLM.  Your money, your time, your choice!
  • Taxis. There is a taxi rank at the main terminal but it is a five minute walk from the GA terminal.
  • Car hire. Avis (+31 (0)10-4332233), Europcar (+31 (0)10-4371826), Hertz (+31 (0)10-4158239), Sixt (+31 (0)10-4627221), National (+31 (0)10-2865966).

On the airport or within walking distance

  • Restaurants. The Grand Cafe / Restaurant Horizon is located airside in the main terminal.

Restaurants

Activities

  • Delft. Delft is a 20 minute taxi ride from the airport. A beautiful town full of canalside cafes and shops, like a scaled down and more intimate Amsterdam. It was Vermeer’s home town although little remains of his presence (although a Vermeer centre reopened in January 2008.) There are many shops selling the famous Delft Blue porcelain but there is also a factory shop and museum outside the town centre.
  • Mauritshuis Museum. Fantastic and delightfully compact museum of Dutch painting in The Hague. Read the Golf Hotel Whiskey review.

Useful information

Parkheuvel Restaurant

I fly from a small airfield, Denham, in Northwest London. Because it is sandwiched between Luton and Heathrow airspace, it is always a challenge to gain altitude and join airways quickly. On the day of our trip to Parkheuvel, I was lucky. A friendly controller let me begin the climb within minutes of take off and we quickly reached 8,000 feet over North London. The view over the city was crystal clear. The flight to Rotterdam was over quickly and we taxied up to KLM’s smart private aviation terminal. A taxi was already waiting and we went from the plane to the car in under five minutes.

Parkheuvel entrance

I had been looking forward to visiting Parkheuvel for a long time. It is one of just three restaurants in Holland to have three Michelin stars. Unfortunately, the restaurant didn’t live up to the occasion or its reputation.

The food – lobster salad and sea bass for me – was well cooked. The location was charming: a modern building on the strand between a park and the river Maas. But Parkheuvel was badly let down by the service, which was slow and absent-minded. For example, the pre-starters were delivered without the cutlery to eat them and the coffees we ordered never appeared. We may have caught them on an off day as the place had changed hands a few weeks before our visit. However, if it wants to keep the three stars of a world-class restaurant, the new owner, Erik van Loo, will have to get a grip.

Contact information

Parkheuvel
Heuvellaan 21
Rotterdam
The Netherlands

Tel. +31 (0)10 436 0766

Fax. +31 (0)10 43 67 140

E-Mail: info@parkheuvel.nl

www.parkheuvel.nl

Important information

Lunch & dinner
Monday-Friday
12.00-14.30 and 18.30-22.00
Saturday
18.30-22.00
Closed on Sundays

Nearest Airport

Rotterdam (10km, 15 minutes by car)

Nearby Towns

  • Rotterdam
  • The Hague (Den Haag)