My wife and I will be flying into Paris on July 9, 2013 and have two weeks before our return flight from Paris. We have been to Paris on 6 previous trips and seen most of France via rental car. For this trip I am thinking of using the train system to move about and since we have not been to Belgium or the Netherlands, Bruges and Amsterdam are obvious choices. How much time should I allocate to these destinations? We enjoy the history of a place, shopping and of course dining and having a little wine.
We do want to save the last three days to be in Paris. Can anyone suggest what other sights we should see? If we allocate three days to Bruges and three to Amsterdam we could add another town or two. Thoughts?
By the way, since we first ventured out on our own to Europe and rented a car, the forum folks at Fodors have been wonderful resources so thanks in advance.
Paris then Bruges, Amsterdam, what else?
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Add more to Amsterdam and use it as a base to visit other cities in the Netherlands, Delft, Leiden, Den Haag, Rotterdam, Utrecht, a trip to the Kroller Muller museum in Hoge Veluwe maybe, or rent a car for a couple of days and head out into the Dutch countryside for a few days, away from the tourist trail.
I would add Brussels or Anthwerp or Ghent, since you are going to be in Belgium to visit Bruges.
Do some reseaarch on these places before you decide what interests you the most.
Thanks for the suggestions. I have a friend who was born in Holland and he suggested the same things hetismij2 offered. Anna, I will follow up on your suggestions.
Beer is what you get in the Netherlands. It is very good beer, but not quite as good as Belgium's, where the food overall is much better too. (I'm not from "Holland"!)