sockboy

Hello,

I am in the early stages of planning a Benelux/Germany trip and would love some help.

The areas that we definitely want to include are:
Amsterdam and surrounding area
Bruges and Brussels
The Rhineland area in Germany

We would be travelling by train throughout, and will consider the Benelux/Germany rail pass. We will be flying in and out of London, so we can easily and cheaply open jaw into and out of almost any city. We will be staying for about 16 days, but could stay a few days longer if it would help.

First Option:
Fly into Amsterdam, day trip to Haarlem and an outdoor museum.
Continue on to Bruges stopping in Brussels for the day on the way.
Train from Bruges to Luxembourg City.
Day trip from Luxembourg City to country in Lux.
Train to a town along the Mosel in Germany
Train to Bacharach or St.Goar, complete with river cruise.
Train to Dusseldorf stopping in Koln for the day on the way.
Fly out of Dusseldorf.

I haven't assigned a number of days to each segment of the trip yet - advice on this would be appreciated.

Main questions are: Is the Lux portion of the trip worthwile?
Should I consider skipping the day in Koln and flying out of Frankfurt instead? Or do a loop starting in Amsterdam and flying out of Brussels? Or is there a good route where I would fly into and out of the same city?
Any other suggestions/comments?

Thanks so much!

Singletail

Just a couple of asides: I'll be in Amsterdam and Germany in June and have purchased the Benelux-Germany railpass already. I was a bit surprised to find out that Raileurope with whom I've dealt successfully for years wasn't, at that time, selling it...but I did get one from raipass.com
I would not skip the day in Cologne necessarily..the cathedral alone is worth a visit in my opinion and some of those K+D Rhine boats terminate in Cologne (passes can be used to ride them for "free&quot. You could easily stay in Cologne overnight and take an ICE back to Franfort airport in less than one hour (provided you take an ICE using the newer "high speed" route between those two cities) which is what I'll be doing later this year.
There was a recent thread about the beauties of Luxumbourg on here which i suspect a seach would bring up.
Have a great trip.

artstuff

sockboy -

Last year we spent 14 days touring the BeNeLux region by train. We didn't go into Germany, but we did have two days in London at the beginning of the trip. If you would like to e-mail me your address, I would be happy to e-mail you a copy of my itinerary for you to reference. There is a lot of information contained on the pages. My e-mail address is:

[email protected]

Please put Fodor's in the subject line.
You might want to go from Haarlem (personally, I would stay in Delft), to Brugges, then to Brussels, and on to Luxembourg. We thoroughly enjoyed Luxembourg City, and the town of Vianden and Clervaux. The Germany portion of your trip I can't speak for, as I am in the process of planning our first visit to Germany. But, I have done a lot of research and travel through BeNeLux, so please feel free to ask any questions. Peace.

Robyn

Russ

Although it's probably not the very cheapest way to go, I would get that 5-day $200 twinpass for convenience' sake; use those days mostly within Benelux (although your short daytrips to Haarlem and within Lux. could be done on regular tix cheaply) and for your final trip to the airport in Germany.

If you need extra travel days on the train, purchase daypasses for the Regional trains ("RE" or "RB", (21-28 Euros/day/group of up to 5) for your trips around the Rheinland (on weekdays, good between Lux border, Mainz in the south, Bonn in the north; anywhere in the country on weekends.)

sockboy

Thank you all for the quick replies. I went to railsaver.com and imput my major train trips. I does seem like it is cheaper to buy point to point tickets by about $25. That sounds like a small amount for the convienience of the pass.

sockboy

Is there any way I can edit the title of this post? I am having a real problem searching for it due to the typo . . .

artstuff

Sockboy -

I don't know how you can edit the title of the post, perhaps someone else can help you with that. However, if you are looking for the post, you can just "click" on your screen name in the upper right hand of the screen and that will display all of your posts that you have made so far on the left hand side of the screen. Peace.

Robyn

artstuff

Hello Brain!?!?

I must be dyslexic today. Your screen name is in the upper LEFT hand corner.

Robyn

sockboy

Thanks again. I can't beleive I never found that before artstuff!

sockboy

artstuff,

I had a close look at your itinerary. Very impressive amount of detail. I have only barely touched on the list of websites!

I do have a couple of questions though.

We are not going to be able to hit all of the destinations that you did. Which towns were the hilights?

How close did you end up being to your estimated budget?

Did you have any problems storing luggage at any of the stations?

How complicated was the bus ride etc to Vianden? It sounds like a wonderful place, but I'm wondering if we can fit it in to this trip.

I am re-examining our itinerary to route in the following way. Comments are very welcome!

London-Brussels/Bruges via Eurostar.
Bruges to Amsterdam stopping at one of the following on the way - Gent, Antwerp or Rotterdam.
Amsterdam to Clervaux stopping at Maastricht on the way.
Side trip to Vianden?
Clervaux to Luxembourg.
Luxembourg to Cochem stopping at Trier on the way.
Cochem to St.Goar via train and boat.
St.Goar to Koln.
Fly out of Koln.

Russ

There are numerous lockers in Trier's station for your stop there, and heading directly out the front door of the station, the town center is a walk of several blocks along a tree-lined boulevard. A very do-able stop.

For your Cochem - St. Goar trip... it may be a little complicated taking the boat. Are you planning to train from Cochem to Koblenz and boat from there? It's 3.25 hours from Koblenz to St. Goar by boat. If going in summer, the boats can be crowded and the ride can often be stiflingly uncomfortable, especially at mid-day. You'll need to tramp several blocks with your luggage between the Koblenz station and the docks. I'm not sure how your luggage can be handled on the boat. Also, though the Koblenz-St. Goar route is scenic, the stretch south of St. Goar is more intensely scenic (includes the Loreley bend and numerous castles through the steepest part of the Rhine Gorge) and probably better for a boat trip. I'd suggest taking the train to St. Goar and doing a late-afternoon cruise to Bacharach (return by train) instead.

BTilke

Take this with a grain of salt, but we finally went to Maastricht two weeks ago after reading some nice comments here. I have to say it was the MOST disappointing place I have ever been to in the Benelux area. We found nothing there that made it worth the drive (that is, that we couldn't have found in many other more charming/interesting places). Of course, if I'd been going there to buy something at the amazing Fine Art fair, that would have been one thing, but overall impression was of a very mundane place by Benelux standards.
BTilke (Brussels)

sockboy

Russ, Thank you for your comments on the boat. I had foolishly not really considered the hassle that our luggage might be on the boat ride. Although we will be travelling light, I think making our way all the way to Gt.Goar, and then day tripping on the boat is a much better idea.

BTilke, thank you for your candid comments. The more I research this area, the more wonderful places there seem to be to see. I don't want to rush through the places we do visit, so I am having to do a considerable amount of editing! Comments like yours are most useful.