Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Korda, and I am so excited to be in Rotterdam.

It's my favourite Dutch city, yes, sorry Amsterdam, astonishing location full of amazing architecture and a very, very diverse culture.

But the stunning new addition to the skyline here is Phoenix, which

celebrates migration. And it's on one of the peers from which all kinds of people left Rotterdam,

left Europe to seek new lives. Anne Kramer's director of Phoenix. Congratulations. How are you feeling?

Thank you so much. I'm feeling great and I'm so happy that after years of building that we can

finally share Phoenix with the world. Well, I was here in 2017 and this place, which at one stage

was the biggest warehouse in the world, was frankly a bit of a wreck.

And so was I. But it has been just transformed brilliantly. Tell us what people will see before they even reach the museum.

When you come to the museum, you probably come by metro and then you cross the pier of tears. This is the

pier from where millions of people board the ships at the end of the 19th beginning of the 20th century

and they started a new life in the United States or Canada. It's also the pier from where

just as many people from all over the world arrived in Rotterdam.

You see an old warehouse, which is named Phoenix.

Built in 1923, you mentioned it, the San Francisco warehouse.

After the Second World War, it was reconstructed and then named Phoenix.

And then you see something shiny. And we name it the tornado. It's a double

helic staircase that starts in the heart of the museum on the ground floor. And as a visitor, you can

make your way up through the roof all the way to the viewing platform from where you have an

amazing view over Rotterdam, the tier of

peers where you just walked, and the former head office of the Holland America line.

And this is designed by Chinese architect Ma Jansom. Yes, that's correct. And he is the first

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