If you spend enough time wandering around Dutch cities, especially in the historic centers, you might never notice a full-on shopping mall. Sure you'll find shopping streets, districts, markets... but this very familiar American style shopping mall, they're not all that common in my experience.

One place I know they have a big one is Rotterdam. So let's say you find yourself in Rotterdam, it's raining, and you happen to be longing for that shopping mall feeling - one place you could go is the Alexandrium Shopping Center.

Accessible via train, metro, car or bike, the Alexandrium boasts 474,000 square feet of every kind of shop you can think of, as well as food and drink places. Unlike American malls it is open 6 days per week and sometimes Sunday as well. The café's serve decent food, so even just as a lunch spot one can pop-in at mid-day.

As a visitor in this country, a megastore where you can buy furniture and groceries in bulk is perhaps not of great importance. But perhaps clothes, music, electronics, and specialty shops... you might just be into that. Oh and yes, it is now smoke free.