Hotel Augustyn in Bruges - so lovely, highly recommend

Thanks for taking the time to share this. I'm heading there next April. Glad you were so happy. Safe future travels!

I bookmarked your recommendation as I hope to travel to Bruges in the next couple years!

That hotel does look charming, and your recommendation is valued. I have found the folks here pretty accurate with their hotel feedback. Where else did you stay ? Thx

@Pat Due to a combo of booking late, having 4-5 people (my mother-in-law joined us for about half of the five weeks) and budget, I don't think we booked anything from Rick's books, but we did rely on this forum. Here is the list:

London night one; Premier Inn, St Pancras - easy to get on Eurostar next day, fine for one night, see more on our return to London hotel below

Amsterdam - Hotel Apple Inn - nice enough, had breakfast for extra fee, frankly I don't remember a ton because I was still jet lagged, my daughter had a migraine here and I found out my 100 year old grandmother passed away while I was here. Not a great start to our trip, but things got better.

Maulbronn, Germany - small town where my husband's family lives. Stayed at Zum Scheffelhoff and it was fabulous. Great German restaurant downstairs, very cozy rooms. Finally slept really well. I probably should do a separate review for this, but it's such a small town, not sure many people would need it.

Slovenia, Lake Bled - we had an apartment here at Apartments Jerman, which had laundry. It was a good location and breakfast was 6 Euros, with made to order eggs! Apartment was clean and tidy.

Munich - stayed at the Novotel Munchen City because we needed a car park for trips to Berchtesgaden and the castles. Very chain like but clean, 10 min walk to Marienplatz, had a pool so the kids were happy and the car park was great.

Krakow, the apartments were called Sleeping in Krakow Main Market, one block from market square, could hear the bugler at night, which I loved. My son, not so much. The staff here was super helpful when the washing machine didn't work. They delivered breakfast for 35 zlotys per box. Clean, cozy but up three flights of stairs! They also worked with us to arrive at 6am from the overnight train.

Berlin - this was an interesting situation. We had two apartments near Brandenburg Gate (Apartments am Brandenbur Tor). My mother in laws was super super nice in one building and ours was just worn and dingy in another building. The hallway for ours felt like some kind of really old office building with poor lighting. And we found out that our building was built on the remains of Hitler's bunker, so then my kids started getting all creeped out in the middle of the night when they heard a noise.

Bruges - the gem of the whole trip! I probably should write individual reviews for some of the others, but this was just so so fabulous.

Bayeux - we needed laundry so I ended up going through AirBNB here because I couldn't find anything. The apartment was great, looking out on the cathedral with 2 bedrooms.

London - back in London via Eurostar for 7 last nights. Stayed at the Premier Inn Kings Cross this time. Also very near the station but seemed much bigger than the St. Pancras one with a large restaurant downstairs. Breakfast was extra, but kids ate free there. It was a chain obviously but I think the love that Premier Inn gets on these forums is justified. The price was good, we were right at Kings Cross underground so we could get to all the things we wanted to see easily and the room was clean and as expected.

Vorst Family, thanks so much for the wonderful input.

thanks so much for posting this.

I'd like you to go into more detail about Maulbronn and the Zum Scheffelhoff which was "fabulous". I perked up up when I saw it had Heilbronnerstrasse because I need to be in Heilbronn and Sinsheim which aren't too far away.

The Monastery (Kloster) looks good too. Did you stop in?

@Nigel, we did go to the Kloster. My husband's cousins live in Maulbronn/Muhlacker and they are very proud of the Kloster. That's how we ended up in Maulbronn, visiting them. The Kloster is very impressive.

Zum Scheffelhof, as far as I know, is one of two hotels in Maulbronn. The other has breakfast, Scheffelhof does not. However, this is not a problem as there are two bakeries steps away. The restaurant in the hotel is open for dinner for sure, and maybe lunch, but not positive. The hotel is small, maybe 10 rooms, and was very clean and comfortable. We had 5 people and needed 3 rooms, since the rooms are all doubles, I believe. It was quiet at night. Scheffelhof did not have parking, but we actually had more family at the other hotel (StuttgART) and there is parking there.

One note: we ended up at Scheffelhoff because the other hotel asked us to cancel our reservation since we were coming by train and they didn't think we would get there in time to check in. The Germans, including our cousins, all seem to be thinking their trains are so bad right now, due to delays. One of the cousins actually said to me "don't all the trains in America run so well and on time, not like here". We were on German trains multiple times in our journey and our longest delay was 10 minutes. They are just so used to it running really well that the delays they are currently experiencing, allegedly due to staff shortages, are difficult for them.

Regarding Heilbronn, we were there 20 years ago, as some other cousins live there. I know we stayed at one of Rick's recommendations from back then, but I'd have to find the old book to remember where.