I need advice for a relative of a co-worker. She is traveling with husband and 2 college age kids - 1st trip to Europe. Her plans do not sound very workable to me but she might be locked into them. It is an 8 day trip, they are renting an apartment in Amsterdam and want to take day trips - she mentioned Belgium and Germany (castles). Is this possible? I would like to tell her to get out of the apartment and stay in Amsterdam for a few days then go to the Rhine region for a few days and same for Belgium. But if she is locked into the apartment what would you recommend for good day trips?

A great day trip frm AMS is by train to the Hague, and a visit to Madurodam (Sp.?) a park of a minature Holland. Ouside of The Hague is Scheveningen; it has some good reataurants along the boardwalk.

Brussels is definitely a possibility for a day trip. Outside of Brussels are great castles. Our favorite (and that of our kids) was Beerzel, castle located in a lake.

You can even make it a day trip to go to Paris by high speed train.

So, there is lots to do and see while making Amsterdam your headquarters. Amsterdam itself and the immediate environs alone will take several days to explore.

The pretty part of the Rhein (between Koblenz and north of Bingen is also feasable, although perhaps a bit of a stretch. Check train schedules on http://bahn.de. I am sure there are some good train passes your friend can buy here in the US or in Europe. It will just take a little work to check these out.

They could take a train trip to Enkhuizen, to visit Zuiderzee Open Air Museum (recreation of 16-17th century village, using actual cottages; some craftsmen on hand to provide demonstrations; windmill; wonderful views of sailing ships, “Clipper” style). It's also a lovely walk through town of Enkhuizen before boarding train to return to Amsterdam (about 1 hour).

I spent 10 days last summer touring AMS with my family (teen age boys.) There are many great day trips out of AMS. The trip to the Hague and Madurodam is well worth it. Also a cheese market at Alkmaar or Edam. Alkmaar is very busy. Both only happen on certain days. The former fishing villages of Volendam and Markin are a short trip north. If the weather is nice the sea side town of Zandvoort is a short train ride west. Since bikes are still a way to get around, a day bike trip is also a fun trip.

Just got back from our trip yesterday. I'll post a report later but we took the 10:07 AM ICE train from Amsterdam Centraal Station to Cochem and reached Cochem about 4:00 PM.

Insofar as the Dutch ever went in for castles, the Muidersloot is not far from Amsterdam - small, 16th-17th century, pleasant but not as dramatic as the kind of castles they might be thinking of.

Utrecht could be interesting - a university town, with the museum of mechanical musical instruments. Sounds worthy, but they have all sorts of weird and wonderful machines, finishing with huge dance hall organs that play boogie-woogie beside a dance floor, if you're in the mood (in fact, that might be one of the tunes they play). www.museumspeelklok.nl/speelklok/uk/

a really fun thing to do is to the take the train to Alkmaar where the cheese market is. A great little city. Not too long a train ride, but she could make it a whole day trip.

We really enjoyed our trip to Hoge Veluwe National Park and the Kroller-Muller National Prk near Arnhem. You can take the train from Amsterdam to Arnhem and then a bus to the national park; the park has bicycles for visitors to use (at no charge) in exploring the park.

The Kroller-Muller Museum has a large collection of paintings by Van Gogh plus lots of sculptures in a lovely garden.

We were there in April 2004. We also visited the royal palace that is close to Apeldoorn (ctnnot remember the name). We had a car so we were able to visit more places in the countryside. We took a daytrip to Amsterdam.

Hi Bob,

Haarlem is a very pleasant town, as are Gouda and Delft.