London to Paris with 3 nights in between
 

Hi, My husband and I are traveling to London in October, spending 6 nights, then traveling to Paris for an additional 6 nights, then we will be taking a river cruise for 7 nights. After we leave London we will have 3 nights to explore before getting to Paris. We were thinking about Bruges, Amsterdam, or Luxembourg, does anyone have any advice, suggestions? We are traveling by train. Thank you.

If it was me -- I'd stay in England for those three nights . . . Oxford, or Bath or the south coast. . . . OR where I'd REALLY go is Jersey. Just a lovely place to visit, staying someplace like this: https://www.liberationgroup.com/the-...urt-house-inn/

Those are great suggestions Janis, I had not thought about Jersey. Bath is a place I'd love to see as well, thank you for the suggestions.

Oh -- I didn't notice that was your first post (had one eye on Fodors and one eye on the Niners Packers game ;) )

Welcome to Fodors!

Go Niners!!! I was watching the same game :).

Was scary there for a bit!

it depends what you like

views of islands...Jersey
centres of wine production and great cathedrals .... Strasbourg or Reims
etc etc

You could Eurostar to Brussels, spend a couple of days there or in Brugge, and then get the train to Paris. Makes more sense perhaps than train to Paris 3 nights somewhere else then back to Paris. The direct Eurostar to Amsterdam won't be running then.
Or re jig the London end and put the three nights in there so you can visit somewhere else in the UK before getting the train to Paris.

To go from London to Paris by train, you board Eurostar at St Pancras International Station in London. Total travel time city centre to city centre is 2hrs 17min.

If the logistics make sense, I'd recommend Amsterdam because of how different it is from other cities - it may end up being your favorite!

All good options and easy to do, really depends on what you are most interested in seeing and doing and what you already have planned for your time in London, whether that might include day trip to Bath as a possibility or what other day trips you might be considering. Amsterdam is really unique, but Bruges also has canals and is quite charming. Amsterdam of course is historic with world-class art museums as well as the Anne Frank Haus.

Anne Frank Huis ;). Dutch, not German.

I would recommend Amsterdam or Brussels because they are logical stops between London and Paris; the London to Amsterdam Eurostar will be running as planned but there will be disruptions back in the opposite direction because the Eurostar terminal in Amsterdam is being renovated. However, I think this disruption only applies if you are going back to London as you will have to do all the immigration formalities in Brussels. If you are going through to Paris, however, I THINK all this does not apply to you. You can of course just catch a Dutch IC train from Amsterdam to Brussels. Have a look at what Man in Seat 61 says:

https://www.seat61.com/trains-and-ro...y-eurostar.htm

Lavandula

Oh, and Luxembourg - it takes 3 hours to get there by train from Brussels, which is where you would have to go to to get there from London. It looks close but it's not. I think it's faster to get to Luxembourg from Paris than Brussels - Lux, because the Brussels train calls at lots of local stations. So I would knock Luxembourg on the head, even though I quite like it.

Thanks for your reply Lavandula, these are all great suggestions. We have settled on spending time in Bruges between London and Paris, we actually now only have 2 nights to spare. I appreciate the link to seat61.

Oh, great, then you won't have to worry about disruptions. You will love Bruges, it's very pretty!

Lavandula

So this apparently means you are planning only one night in Bruges? By the time you get there from London, you'll have very little time there if you're leaving the next day.

Susan, thanks for pointing that out, it takes 3 hours and 20 minutes from London to Bruges on the fast train. Perhaps it's best to shave a day off London and make it a full 2 days in Bruges. This is why I love this site, thank you.

2 full days in Bruges.... possibly a day too long

I wasn't really suggesting that you take time off London. You said you had three nights between London and Paris. On the other hand, on your other thread, your latest itinerary shows two nights between the two. Which is it?

Bruges is indeed very charming and it is easy and compact to walk around there. Nice restaurants and very nice chocolate shops. The Guild Hall and the Tower were very memorable. Because our time in Amsterdam had been limited including one day of heavy rain, we did a canal boat ride in Bruges and skipped some of the Bruges museums as we had spent time in the Rijksmuseum. We drove to Bruges from Amsterdam on a Thursday, stopping in Antwerp to see the Cathedral. We drove back on Saturday directly to the airport for a 9 PM flight to Israel, stopping at the Hague along the way for a coffee and pastry as well as the Mauritshaus. The museum was partially closed in preparation for an extensive renovation and so they didn't charge any admission. It was so memorable because I had the gallery with The Girl with the Pearl Earring all to myself.