De Esch Nature Reserve

You can walk quietly and it is easily accessible by car.

Nature reserve De Esch is located behind the buildings of Rotterdam's old drinking water area. Here you walk on narrow sandy paths and between gigantic trees. You can pick blackberries, climb trees and watch wild flowers. Who knows, you might hear an owl calling in the tall trees.

Polder De Esch is part of the green corridor that runs through Rotterdam. From the Rotte, via the Kralingse bos, Burgemeester Oudlaan, Honingerdijk, De Esch to the island of Brienenoord.
The Esch is a meander located on the Maas and is part of the river landscape. It consists of meadows and nature reserve.

Old part of Rotterdam
Around the beginning of the common era it was a peat area and no significant river flowed there. Only from the twelfth century onwards did a river flow with such a size that clay could be deposited on the peat. After the construction of the Schielandse Hoge Zeedijk in 1270, the area became inside the dike and therefore a polder with a meadow. The dike had to be raised in the late 1960s. The Rotterdam municipal council decided to build this new dike slightly inland, so that a bend for the river could be cut here. The area within the new dike was then reclaimed, but the old dike was not removed and the plan to cut off the river was never implemented. Because there has not yet been any elevation in this area, it is still really an old part of Rotterdam.