If you follow me on twitter, you probably know that I won two return ticket from Tiket.com to any city in Indonesia with Citilink back on June 2015. Yes, it’s almost two years ago but I was not really in the mood for writing my travel journey back then (excuses, excuses! Shame on you, Jani). So on 3^rd to 6^th of July 2015, I went to Makassar with my cousin. We visited and saw many interesting place there and I will try my best to share it all with you guys. As for now, I present you the beautiful Fort Rotterdam.

We came here by an angkot (it is called pete-pete in Makassar). We get in to the blue pete-pete in front of Pantai Losari area and took off right in front of the Fort Rotterdam entrance. I think it cost us about IDR 5.000 for a single ride to Fort Rotterdam. Well, I just gave the driver that amount of money and leave though. LOL!

Fort Rotterdam is a 17^th century fort that lies in the heart of Makassar. It used to be a fort to protect the city of Makassar from colonist. However the Fort Rotterdam is given to the Dutch colony due to the loss of Gowa Kingdom in 1667. And yes, I know this because I love my country history (JK. I read this on Wikipedia

It is a rectangular shape fort and six bulwarks (only five still visible to this day). There are Bastion Bonie to the west, Bastion Boeton to the northwest, Bastion Batjang to the southwest, Bastion Mandassar to the northeast and, Bastion Amboina to the southeast. This rectangular and six bulwarks shape make the fort look like a sea turtle from above, hence the Benteng Penyu (sea turtle fort) nickname.

The entrance ticket was a pay-as-you-wish thing. So you can pay as much as you feel, but mostly around IDR 5.000 or IDR 10.000 per person is enough. There is also history museum inside the Fort Rotterdam area. It cost you around IDR 10.000 if I’m not mistaken.

It was a huge place! Not to mention that almost every building looks pretty similar. My cousin and I been wandering around for about 30 minutes or so before we decided to get a tour guide to explain everything in here. I don’t really remember whether they set a specific price for the tour guide service, but I remember I gave him IDR 50.000 for a 2 hours tour around the Fort Rotterdam. Feel free to tip him as well.

I don’t really recall what he was talking about since it happened two years ago. It was mostly about the fight of the Makassar people and the history about the Gowa kingdom, if I’m not mistaken. If you are someone who keen on history, I would really recommend you to come to Fort Rotterdam when you happen to be in Makassar. Well if not, just come and take a lot of pictures since the place is very beautiful to take pictures.

***

Fort Rotterdam

Jl. Ujung Pandang

Bulo Gading, Makassar

South Sulawesi, Indonesia

Opening hours: 8 AM – 6 PM