Hi Pam

My mom and I spent two nights in Amsterdam and 6 nights in Germany in May of this year. With the high speed trains (ICE), it was easy and quick to get around. Germany has many lovely areas and there are lots of folks on this board with much more Germany experience than me, but we did enjoy the Mosel area very much. (Our ancestors are from Germany also.)

Thanks, Aggiemom. That reassures me that it could be possible to finally see where my grandmother was born. A person in the German genealogy group told me the building is still standing -- she was born in 1876, so I didn't really expect it to be.
Pam

Hi Pam,

You may also consider to visit the southern part of the country, being Maastricht a nice option, reachable by train from Amsterdam (about 150 miles).
For cheap flights, have a look at transavia.com or easyjet.com, Spain being always a good option (if you book in advance, a trip to Barcelona or Barcelona for 3-4 days could be arround or less than 150 euros). Culturally is excellent, the food is superb and is relatively cheap compared with other european destinations.

Hope this helps

Thanks for the flight sights, Carlos. I'll check them out. Barcelona was in my travel plans for "some day" too, so perhaps this is the time. I'm sure the weather would be more pleasant than northern Europe in early April.
Pam

A big strong second for Barcelona. Second place, Menton (on the French/Italian border a few km east of Monaco.) If you want to go to the Cote d'Azur, use the Transavia service from AMS to Genoa.

Hi P,

Have you been to Paris?

Hi Ira,
Yes I have been to Paris a number of times. My husband just inquired about our going to Venice. We were there for a week in October a few years ago, and have been dreaming about going back. (The world is filled with wonderful places!) I'm thinking Venice weather could be lousy in April, but I really don't know. Any thoughts on that? I'm not sure if it would be expensive to fly from Amsterdam to Venice (I love coming in the airport there). It's a nice problem to think about

Amsterdam is not particularly convenient to Ryan Air's airport (60-70 miles away) but you can probaly make a reasonable deal to fly out of Schipol (sp) which is VERY convenient and you can choose from almost any city in Europr. You will be within a couple of air hours from almost anywhere in Europe. Prague is still on my list of places I want to go but that's just me.

Thanks for the tip, AisleSeat. I wouldn't have thought of the airport distances. Choosing another city is a happy dilemma for me. Sounds like there are so many choices. I want to go to Prague some day, too, though probably on a longer trip that combines Germany, too.

Hi Pam,

You can fly out of AMS to Venice Treviso for about 80E pp.

See www.whichbudget.com