Smaller Towns vs. Big City
 

My hubby and I will be traveling to Europe in March. Since we have never been to Amsterdam or Belgium, we do plan to spend at least one day in each of the cities. However, we don't want to limit our stay to the cities - we'd like to see some of the other areas.

We will be traveling by train. Our key interests are eating, shopping, pretty scenery, and hopefully some beautiful flowers.

Ideas on some smaller towns/cities (not tiny, just something smaller than the big cities i mentioned) to stay in for a couple of days and be able to do tours from there? We prefer a town that we can walk around in to restaurants etc. and then take tours out of if possible.

thanks!!!

Bruges would be high on my list for a good walking-around town.

Brugge for sure in Belgium, maybe Ieper, or Oostende; Haarlem or Delft in the Netherlands, or how about valkenburg a/d Geul, down near Maastricht (I love the place). Perfectly placed for side trips into Germany, Luxemburg and the Belgian Aredennes.

Great suggestions, thanks to both of you!

iluvs, FYI Belgium is NOT a city! It's a whole country. Not a large one, I agree, but pretty diverse anyway. Flat and Flemish-speaking in the north, hilly and French-speaking in the south.
Some pretty small towns in Flanders could be Lier, Mechelen, Ieper, Oostende ... somewhat bigger are Antwerpen, Gent, Liège. I guess I don't have to tell you about Brugge. It has become our best export product, next to beer and chocolate.
If you base around the 'bigger' cities Brussels, Antwerpen or Gent you can make easy (half) daytrips throughout the country.
Same for the Netherlands: if you base around Amsterdam, every other town is within very reasonable distance for daytrips.