„It was still a couple of hours till dawn when we dropped anchor in the Hook van Holland. Snow covered everything and the flakes blew in a slant across the cones of the lambs and confused the glowing discs that spaced out the unrodden quay. I hadn’t known that Rotterdam is a few miles inland. I was still the only passanger in the train and this solitary entry, undercover by night and hushed by the snow completed the illuson that I slipping into Rotterdam, and into Europe, through a secret door.“
(Sir Patrick Michael Leigh Fermor: A Time of Gifts)