janjanjan47

We want to leave Amsterdam, wander around Netherlands and Belgium, stopping at churches and towns that our ancestors left to come to the USA. We plan to stay overnight in Bruges, travel on to Honfleur and the Normandy beaches before getting to Paris. We have 8 days for this part of our trip.

Question is how to do. Renting a car for 4 adults seems best, but pricey with drop fees etc. What would you suggest? Ideas are welcome.

In Italy a couple of years ago, there were definitely best rental locations. Is that similarly true this time?

Suggestions please.

FrenchMystiqueTours

For car rental info use www.autoeurope.com and to avoid drop off fees in another country leave the car in the country where you rented and take a train over the border to rent in the next country. Awkward to be sure but really the only way to avoid drop off fees. Usually dropping off at another location within the same country won't incur a fee. I'm not a car rental expert so perhaps someone else might have a better suggestion but this is the obvious solution.

Jeff801

If your trip is about 3 weeks long or more, you might check with Peugeot Open Europe about a pick up of a large vehicle in Amsterdam, and a return at any of a number of rental return centers in France. There will be no drop charge, the lease-purchase will be fully insured, and all or your party may drive at no extra cost. For shorter trips, there is no economical alternative to leaving the car in one country, traveling to another, and then picking up a new rental, so far as I know.

janjanjan47

Appreciate the info

janjanjan47

The info is helpful. So, I've come up with an alternative. We could take the local bus or train out of Amsterdam to visit the Netherlands locations, train to Belgium, take local bus or train to those locations. Then train to Lille, rent a car there for the France part of the trip. Then return the car, preferably north of Paris. Does that make sense? Any suggestions about the best locations to rent and return the car? I'm asking experts because the car rental sites require that we know what we want to do with some precision and of course, they don't make helpful suggestions about saving money, and more important, avoiding excessive congestion.

joannyc

Car rental pickups at airports, and often train stations, add additional fees to the rental cost. Drop offs at airports and train stations don't incur the additional fees.

Pick up the car at a non-airport/train station location, e.g., downtown. You can drop it off in the same country at a different location usually with no one-way drop fees.

Tulips

This all depends on where you're going. If you will be visiting the countryside and small villages in the Netherlands and Belgium, better to have a car. There's a bus service to nearly everywhere, but it will eat up a lot of your time.
Depending on where in the Netherlands and Belgium you want to go, think about renting a car when you leave Amsterdam, travel through the Netherlands and Belgium and return the car in Roosendaal; in the Netherlands, but just accross the border from Belgium. Take the train from there to Antwerp and Brugge.
Breda would be good for returning the rental car too.

If the places you want to go to all have train stations, then take the train.

Tulips

Returning your car in Maastricht is another good option; lovely town, well worth a visit. And easy access to the eastern part of Belgium.

nytraveler

IMHO a car is really the most efficient way to do this trip and gives you the opportunity to explore serendipitously - which is one of the joys of road trips in europe.

Yes, there is a drop off charge - but usually not that much divided by 4 people - and IMHO just part of the cost of a more flexible/enjoyable trip.

kerouac

I think it is still better to leave cars in the country where you rented them. And taking a train for a part of the distance can often save money anyway.

Honfleur is lovely. Here are a few photos of the trip I made there 4 years ago: http://anyportinastorm.proboards.com.../4969/honfleur

annhig

before i knew anything about Fodors, we rented a car in Geneva [swiss side, at the airport] and returned it to Amsterdam airport. Yes there were drop off fess [I don't actually remember how much, this was 10+ years ago] but between the 4 of us, it was worth it to be able to do a one-way trip without having to play around with our luggage, bother with trains, etc, and we went to a lot of places that trains don't go.

hetismij2

It really does depend on where you are wanting to visit whilst moseying around. Taking buses is slow travel, which is fine if you have lots of time for that and are prepared to walk considerable distances too.

Look into the oneway drop off fee. If you really want to mosey a car is the way to go, and using the same car throughout is so much easier than dropping it off, crossing the border and finding another one. It could even be cheaper than a series of short rentals and train trips.

Give us an idea of where in the Netherlands and Belgium you want to visit.

FrenchMystiqueTours

You do not want to drop the car off north of Paris since you'll be coming from the west. If your trip ends around the D-Day sites then drop the car off in Bayeux or Caen and take the train to Paris from there. However, there is still a lot to see between the D-Day sites and Paris and although others may feel differently I don't find driving back to Paris to drop the car off to be a big deal. If you drop it off by Porte Maillot then the A13 autoroute turns into avenue Charles de Gaulle and leads directly to Porte Maillot so you don't drive into Paris and you won't get lost. Look at www.autoeurope.com for car rental info.

janjanjan47

I don't have all my genealogy info with me,
but waalwijk, NE and st. Joris weert, Nethen, Basel, Ottenburg, luvain, Belgium come to mind.


Two of my husband's grandparents are from NE, two of mine are from Belgium with some marrieds coming from NE-Belgium border. My other two grandparents are descendants of extremely early 1600s New France immigrants, who we believe sailed from Honfleur. Since we have some baptismal records, we thought we'd stop in a few towns and at some churches we know about. Lots of family history packed into a tiny area. Then, again, we might get bored with this project quickly.

I have a deep interest in WWI and we want to allow time to visit some of those memorials as well.

This discussion has been excellent, and I'm rethinking. There is a definite trade-off between time, convenience, and money. We have enjoyed driving in Europe, but have also liked trains. Busses not so much.

Thanks to everyone.

Tulips

You could visit the Efteling in Waalwijk! OK, it's a theme park, but a lovely one with lots of green and gardens. Or stay in Den Bosch, close to Waalwijk. It's a great small city.

Leuven is easy by train, but if you want to visit the other places as well, you need a car. These are tiny villages, I'd never heard of those. All in the same general area east of Brussels, close to Leuven.

If your interest is in WWI, it would be better to keep the car, so you can stop at some of the sites in northern France on your way to Honfleur.

janjanjan47

At least a couple of those places were apparently economically depressed, thus most of the population came to Wisconsin over a 20 year period in the mid to late 1800s so I'm assuming that only the churches may remain. Thank you for your personal help.

Janet

Tulips

Waalwijk is the center of shoe manufacturing in the Netherlands. And it has the Efteling. So it's a well known place.

I see that Ottenburg has an archeological site that's probably an ancient burial place, and is famous for it's local cheesecake containing rum and apples. So I would say definitely stop there!

And do let us know how it turns out. Nice for someone to get off the beaten path.