Day trip from Amsterdam
 

My friend and I will be in Amsterdam for a week in late January. What destination would be best for a day trip? We'd travel by train (4 hrs max each way). We want to shop, eat and see some sites.

The country is small and you could go any where in Holland...how about Delft, The Hague.

Haarlem is only 20 minutes by train.

Holland International, and no doubt other companies, offer day trips by coach from Amsterdam, though the pleasure of a lot of the sights may be reduced by the weather.

Haarlem has a market and the Frans Hals Museum. The Hague has the Mauritshuis and the Dutch parliament. Delft has pretty canals and historic churches. Utrecht also has canals, and is a university town, and it has the national museum of mechanical musical instruments (Speelklok tot pierement), which they will play and let you dance to. Amsterdam probably has better shopping than all of them.

The museum of mecahnical musical instruments in Utrecht is wonderful if you are at all interested in that sort of thing and the town itself is interesting to walk around in.

There is also the possibility of Madurodam in/near The Hague; the working windmills at Zaans Schanz and all of these and the destinations mentioned above are very easily reached by rail and can be done without going on an organized tour.

Yes, of course, I'm sorry. In my mind, I was drawing a distinction between bus tours and the places you could easily do by train (trains in the Netherlands are excellent), but I see my post reads the other way as well.

Antwerp, Brussels,...

Utrecht tower that has a nice view.

Thanks everyone for all your great feedback!!!! I think we've decided to take the train to Antwerp and explore the city.