karencorreia

hey everyone! my last trip was a fantastic, and i have to thank a lot of people that heped me at this website!
Well, next stop Netherlands!

I don´t konw yet how many days the trip will be.

But i thought about travelling by train and visit: Amterdam - Utrecht - Rooterdam - Lisse - Haarlem - Amsterdam

What do you think? should i change any city? I´m not sure about rooterdam...tell me what you think.

And how is train travelling in Holland??


Thanks!

spaarne

I guess you would only want to visit Lisse during tulip season. The best time is April/May. See http://tinyurl.com/y8hltjl. Skip Rotterdam unless you like industrial port cities and post-WWII Dutch architecture. Ugh. Delft is really nice. The Hague is also very nice, right on the North Sea coast. The trains in NL are frequent and fast. For an illustrated introduction to European trains see http://tinyurl.com/eym5b.

hetismij2

Spaarne doesn't like Rotterdam, as you may have gathered, but it is an interesting city for modern architecture, with some good museums, and very different to most Dutch cities.
The Oude Kerk in Delfshaven is known as the Pilgrims church. The Pilgrim Fathers set sail from Delfshaven on the Speedwell. Most of Delshaven escaped the Nazi bomabardment, though some was destroyed later by the Allies.

You can visit all of those places as day trips by train from Amsterdam. If you want to see the Netherlands then break out of that circle a bit and go explore other towns and villages.

You won't need a rail pass - just buy point to point tickets.

ribeirasacra

Having just come back from visiting Rotterdam I have to disagree with spaarne. There a quite a number of old buildings left around the city. You will find such buildings in Mauritsstraat, Kortenaerstraat, Mauritsweg, Oude Binnenweg, Schiedamsesingel, Veerhaven etc. So not all is lost.
The link to the Dutch train website is http://www.ns.nl
For travel planner look at http://www.9292ov.nl
There is are English sections for both websites

karencorreia

ok! thank you all for the reponses...
My last trip was a bagpacking, train travelling, super-market eating kind of trip and i loived it...so i wanted to do just that but in the netherlands...if you could choose a few citys wich ones would you choose? i´m itereste in history, adventure, culture, everything a city can offer! i´m not looking for one specific type of turism...so don´t be afraid of suggesting tottaly different cities!! i´m going with my boyfriend but it doesn´t have to be all about romance...

karencorreia

Oh! and are there tullips in Lisse
in june/july/August/september ?

Tulips

Tulip season is April/May depending on weather. There are no more tulips in June or later.
I would include Den Haag, and if the weather is good, include a day of two in Bloemendaal on the beach (near Haarlem).

mscleo

If you do Lisse and want to see tulips, go to the Keukenhof Gardens. It's the world's largest flower garden with over 7 million flower bulbs planted there every year. It's only open, however, from 22 March to 20 May 2012, so if you are planning your journey around that time period, I would highly recommend a visit!

annhig

in 2012, you can also visit the floriade - a gigantic flower and plant show held every 10 years near Venlo in the east of the Netherlands, from April to October.

We're going at the end of april.

http://www.floriade.com/

MyriamC

I agree with hetismij. We live less than an hour from Rotterdam and had never been there. We visited this summer and, man, what a pleasant surprise! Amazing architecture, and some good museums. We discovered the city by foot, which is what we try to do everywhere we go. Do visit Rotterdam, it's so different but very worthwhile.