I was wondering if someone with experience traveling from brussels could help us with planning the itinerary of our trip?
My husband and I are arriving in Brussels on April 11 and have a about a week in Europe (we fly out of brussels on April 20) This is the first time in many years that our work trips have left us with free time after so we really want to take advantage of our extra week :)
We would like to visit Bruges, Ghent, Paris and Amsterdam in a week. I'm trying to figure out which are the best ways/dates to route the Thalys train schedule so we can spend less time traveling but still trying to keep it as inexpensive as possible.
I was thinking of staying in brussels on 4/12 ( we have both been here a lot for work and don't want to tour the city again), do a day trip to Ghent and Bruges on 4/13 (anyone have good recommendations on whether to take train/bus/guided tour company?), leave brussels for Paris on 4/14, take train from Paris to Amsterdam on 4/16 and take train from Amsterdam back to brussels on 4/19.
The alternative would be doing brussels-Paris-Amsterdam-brussels-Bruges/Ghent-brussels. Or brussels-Amsterdam-Paris-brussels-Bruges/Ghent-brussels.
Any and all advice on which routes to take, which train/bus/your companies to use would be very much appreciated. Also, do we need to rent a car at any point, because we would really prefer not to.
Thank you all in advance!