chasi -

The Netherlands are so beautiful in April, with splashes of color everywhere, you will surely enjoy your travels.

May I suggest that you start with doing a search in "search this forum" at the top of the page. Or, click on my screen name and you will find many posts by me on the BeNeLux region. There are many travellers here at Fodors who have posted extensively on this region, and you will probably find much of the information that you are looking for. If not, post a more specific question.

I do have a question for you. May I ask why you want to rent a car, other than for driving around in the bulb fields? Leiden, Delft & Haarlem are so close to each other and easily accessible by train - Brugge is about 3 hours by train. And the LAST thing you want to do is try to take a car into Amsterdam and find a place to park it. I only ask because you mention "budget accomodations" - to rent a car seems a waste of money to me. We were pleasantly sated by the tulips just by riding on the train through the bulb fields and visiting the Keukenhof. If you really want to cruise around the bulb fields, rent a bike. Peace.

Robyn

Robyn thanks raising the issue of car vs. train. We always agonize over this point whenever we plan a trip.
Pro car: We will not spend anytime in Amsterdam since we had a very pleasant visit two years ago. We rented a car for five days and we drove through Northern Holland, but dropped it off as soon as we reached in Amsterdam and took a taxi to the hotel. We thought to stay in budget hotels on the outskirits of cities with free parking, e.g. van der Valk Leiden and others. Flexibility, freedom. We might decide to travel to Brugge or to Efteling (even though for kids, my wife keeps raising the possibility.)We're 55 and haven't riden bikes in years.
Con Auto: About EU30 per day, excluding fuel and parking versus train fares. Have to leave the car on outskirits of town and walk in sometimes. I am sure that you remind of many other cons. Everything is so close and just a short train ride away.

Would appreciate any additional thoughts you might have about itineraries and this issue.

Thanks

Chasi, the Efteling is lovely (even without kids). It's situated in a beautiful park; it should be especially nice in April, with the spring flowers blooming.

Driving to Brugge could take 3 hours, and you will have to go around the Antwerp Ring road; always a bit of a hassle, even though the roadworks will probably not have started by then.

In Leiden, there is an excellent natural history museum called Naturalis, if this interests you.
Madurodam, in The Hague, is very nice too.

Even though I know the trains and busses are great in The Netherlands, I always drive everywhere. I live in Antwerp, and Amsterdam is usually no more than 1 1/2 hours (sometimes less) As long as you try to avoid the morning and evening rush hours, it should be ok.

Sorry, can't help on budget accommodations.

By the way, if you are driving to the Efteling, see if you can visit the church of Oudenbosch. This is the website; http://noordbrabantchurches.tripod.com/oudenboschagatha.html

It's a copy of the St Peter in Rome. Amazing church for such a small village.

And thinking about it, for budget accomodation, you might try the Van der Valk chain of hotels that are all over The Netherlands. They are always good value.

The website for that hotel chain is www.valk.com.

chasi -

My husband and I have also agonized about whether to take public transportation or rent a car when we travel in Europe. So far we have opted for public transport. Here's some of the reasons why....

* We live in a rural area and have to drive everywhere (20 miles RT for groceries, yesterday I drove 65 miles RT for art supplies), so it's nice to get away from driving when we are on holiday.

* So far, everywhere we have wanted to go in Europe has been accessible by train or bus. Some of our more memorable travel experiences have been on buses (along the Amalfi Coast immediately comes to mind). Plus, we get to talk with the local people and other travellers while taking public transport. We've met some wonderful people that we will never forget (the Judge and his Wife), some meetings lasting only 10 minutes or shorter. Those chance meetings have become an important part of the journey.

* The train knows the right direction to travel in. Once you figure out which train you want to take, you just get on and relax until your stop. We can BOTH enjoy the scenery out the window and there is less chance of a silly spat over directions.

* We can have that bottle of wine with dinner, or "another beer," or a shot of whatever, with out having to worry about driving and the police.

* Driving a car in bad weather would be a real drag. Plus the hassle of picking up & dropping off the car, getting fuel for the car, what if it breaks down(?), you have an accident, all those things which would make for a bummer of a time. Public transport, so far, has been a more reliable and efficient use of our limited time while we are on holiday.

Of course, you have already rented a car in the Netherlands on a previous journey, and obviously had a positive experience, so you should do so again, particularly if there are some out-of-the-way places you want to visit.

May I suggest that you get a copy of the Michelin Green Guide for the Netherlands, which is a very comprehensive tourist guide. They list many little towns and villages, like Spaarandam, home of the Hans Brinker statue, just outside of Haarlem, which we visited by bus. Or Oudewater (near Gouda), one of the Netherlands oldest small towns, which owes its fame to its witches' scales and Witch Museum (we haven't been there yet, maybe a future trip).

May I also recommend the Herberg de Emauspoort in Delft, a small 12 room hotel right in the heart of the old city. Two years ago the rates were EUR82.50 for double, breakfast included. I believe they have a small car park in the courtyard behind the hotel. They do have a delicious bakery on site, and free bike rentals, if you do want to try some bike riding. (We also, don't ride bikes but decided to give it a try. Our ride lasted 10 minutes and I thought my husband was going to kill himself).

And for your information, if you do decide to take the train, we used the 5-day BeNeLux Rail Pass for Two, which cost USD254 total, two years ago. Well, that's enough rambling for today. Enjoy your travels. Peace

Robyn

Robin, was it more economical to get the railpass?

Hello Philbill -

For starters, here's the link for a website where you can type in your itinerary,and it will tell you whether a rail pass or point-to-point is more economical.

http://www.railsaver.com/

When we did the BeNeLux region, we bought the 5-day BeNeLux rail pass, which two years ago cost USD254 per couple ($25/day/person), USD168 for single. We used it for our longer rail distances. We also enjoy the flexibility of being able to jump on and off the trains without dealing with purchasing a ticket.

We utilized our pass in the following way: Day 1 - travelled from Amsterdam to Maastricht, stopping in Utrecht and Gouda. Day 2 - Maastricht to Vianden, stopping in Clervaux. Day 3 - Luxembourg City to Brugge, stopping in Dinant and Brussels. Day 4 - Brugge to Delft, stopping in Ghent and Rotterdam. Day 5 - Day tripping to Haarlem, Leiden, Amsterdam from Delft. We covered a lot of territory, so we found the rail pass to be very economical (and convenient).

We've also used the Netherlands rail pass for day tripping out of Amsterdam, visiting a combination of cities. Hope this helps with your planning. Will you be doing the BeNeLux region, or just the Netherlands? Peace.

Robyn

Thanks to all of you who responded with helpful suggestions.
In the end we rented a car and stayed six nights at the van der Valk Leiden Hotel. We scourged the Internet and came up with very good rates for both the car and the hotel.
For those planning a similar trip for next year's tulip season here are my tips relevant to various topics that have appeared here.
1. You can definitely work in a visit to the Aalsmer flower auction if you have a morning flight, especially if you have a car. We arrived at 8:30AM and had plenty time to arrive two hours early for a 1PM international flight. The actual auctions were all finished by 9:15AM so plan to earlier than we did. If you drive be prepared for a rather long complicated walk from the roof top parking lot, as opposed to a much shorter walk if you had come by tourist bus. The earlier you come the more time you will have to rummage through the bulbs in the shop at the end of the tour, but note that the prices are high.
2. Try to arrive at the Keukenhof gardens not later than 10 AM. Its a trade off between when the morning cloudiness clears and the tourist buses arrive. The earlier you arrive the more time you will have to enjoy the landscapes in tranquility. However, the most spectacular views are not of the gardens, in my opinion, but of the miles and miles of adjacent bulb fields that are best viewed after climbing the ladder stairs up to the second story of the windmill. Take your time, even if the small porch is crowded, to get good photos. They will probably be the best of your whole trip. The colors are truly magnificent - Technicolor Oz as someone described them and really did bring back childhood memories of the burst in color when Dorothy found herself in the Land of Oz.
3. I am sorry to say that the flashes of the bulb fields you get from taking the train from Amsterdam to Den Haag can't compare with what you can see driving along N206 and even A44. Some of the nicest views were along the route noted in green on the Michelan 1/50000 map from Lisse to Noordwich. Plus you get a chance to explore the dunes and eat herring and kibbel at the stands along the strand in Noordwich.
4. We had an easy two hour Sunday drive from Leiden to Brugge. The strange thing about this route is that there are no gasoline stations between Brugge and the Dutch border, which caused a little concern on our drive home.
5. Aside from the Memling paintings and the old town itself, the place we enjoyed best was the Chocolate Story museum. Your enjoyment of chocolate will never quite be the same afterwards.
6. Personally we enjoyed smaller and quainter Delft more than Brugge. If you have been entranced by the Girl with the Earing, be sure to take a few moments standing over the very, very modest plaque marking Vermeers crypt in the Old Church. Once outside take a look up at the church tower, it tilts so much it seems ready to fall over. Near the square don't miss the building that served as the Meat Market. Pay attention to the signs pointing out other sites related to Vermeer. This is a nice complement to spending some reflection full moments in the Vermeer room at the Maurit House museum in Den Haag looking at the picture itself and Vermeer's view of Delft on the adjacent wall.
7. My only real mistake and I attribute it to bad memory was initially missing the Escher museum in Het Palais only a few blocks from the Maurit House museum. I had forgotten about the topic discussion of it and instead relied on Michelan. Unfortunately my green guide from 2002 said the exhibit was in another museum that we traveled across town to reach. You never know how things work out in the end.
8. We were among the last ten people checking into our flight home, having spent too much time buying gifts in the Aalsmer shop (the rental car return took no more than 2 minutes and its a short walk to the departure area). After checking in, we were asked whether we might agree to take a later flight 12 hours later from Brussels. As we hestitated more the offer went up. But the thing that convinced us to do it was the chance to return to Den Haag and visit the Escher museum. Robyn, since we had already returned our car, we had no choice but the take the train from Schiphol to Den Haag and it was great. The Het Palais was a very pleasant five block walk from the Central station. Aside from the print collection, we learned alot about Escher from the audio visual presentation. The journey into 3D virtual reality Escher land was the climax. My wife teaches elementary school math and uses lots of Escher prints in her classes so this was like visiting a shrine for her.
9. At Schiphol we used the lockers to store our luggage, which worked out fine. You open the lockers using the bar code on the automatic receipt, so make sure you don't lose it. While waiting for our taxi to Brussels, we ate at Per Tutti in B Terminal Area, which my wife thought was the best airport food she had ever eaten.
10.To top things off, the compensation we received from the airlines for taking a later flight easily paid for the hotel and the rental car.

Hi chasi-

Thanks for your report - I'm planning to visit Den Haag and Delft in May. I'm looking forward to the Escher museum.

When you were in Delft, were the "Vermeer" signs obvious? Does the tourist info center provide walking guides/maps etc or did you rely on you Michelin guide?

Hello chasi -

I'm glad you had a great trip and were able to get back to den Haag to go to Escher in het Palais. I've always been a fan of Escher and was thrilled to see many of his familiar pieces in person. But the virtual reality tour at the end was such a blast - I not only got to see Escher's pieces, I got to be a part of them, and travel around in them! I can certainly understand your wife's sentiments about the museum being a shrine.

Did you get to see the Dutch auctions at Aalsmeer, or did you get there too late? I've always been curious how the bidding starts high then decreases, instead of starting low and going higher. I found the employees darting about, on the motorized carts filled with flowers, fascinating to watch.

And do I see train travel in your future?.... Anyway, I'm glad that you had a safe journey. Now, start planning for the next one. Peace.

Robyn

Thanks for a very nice report about some of my favorite places.

Dear YK - There are lots of Vermeer very detailed Vermeer signs around the Old Church and Old Canal. There is a very pleasant and helpful tourist information office not far away that has tons of information. I didn't ask about Vermeer, because we were already on our way to the Delft Tile factory, which you should make an effort to visit. They have several tours an hour for individuals that are not part of large bus tours.
Dear Robyn-Yes aournd 8:45AM we got to see the Dutch auctions, which are unlike anything else we have seen. The bidders are seated in an auditorium like room with two large computer screens in the front. As the carts of flowers automatically come into the room someone hold up a sample. The screen has a clock like dial and a ball starts to go in counter clockwise direction corresponding to lower prices. The first person to push his button gets the cartful of flowers or plants. Lots of technical info is displayed on the screen along with a picture of the flowers. All the biders are working on the notebook computers and cell phones during the bidding. The whole thing takes a few seconds and then the next cart on the flower train comes in.
We haven't yet decided where our next trip will take us.

chasi-

Thanks for the info! I'm not sure if I can squeeze in the Tile factory but I'll make a mental note on it.

We had a fab time in the Netherlands. Got the BeNeLux railpass for $122 per person and spent a weekend in Luxembourg stopping off at Maastricht going and Brussels returning. We found that paying a couple of Euros at the tourist office or VVV gave us a great self guided walking tour of places in the Netherlands and Brussels. We spent a night in Delft...fabulous..and got our souvenirs at the antique shops. Got tiles commemorating the end of the 2nd World War. Absolutely fascinating. The flower auction was great. More to follow as it is a ways from Amsterdam.