My wife and I are arriving in Amsterdam and plan to go straight to Ghent by train.
From there we go to Bruges, then to Delft, Leiden, and Amsterdam.
Would we be better off just getting a Benelux train pass or are there other options, such as going
point to point?
We want to keep it simple. Also if we take the train from the Netherlands to Belgium and back, do we need to
make reservations for the train across borders?
Thanks in advance.
Warren
Posted by
Green Bay
21140 posts
The only train that requires a reservation is if you use the Thalys high speed train for the Schipol-Ghent leg and the Bruges-Delft leg. The Thalys will save you about 1 hour on each of these legs, but there are some issues.
First, Thalys is expensive unless you buy tickets far in advance. Since you are arriving by plane, you can't actually know if you will land on time. So if you have an advance discount Thalys ticket and you miss it, its no good any more and you have to buy a new full fare ticket.
Second, if you get the Benelux pass, you have to pay a high reservation fee to get on the Thalys train with your pass.
Alternative is to use regular trains, that go every hour from Schipol. So you would go Schipol to Rotterdam to Antwerp to Ghent. Tickets don't need (or take) reservations. Buy a ticket and get on the train and go.
Ghent to Bruges is a cheap ticket, as are Delft to Leiden and Leiden to Amsterdam.
Posted by
the Netherlands
2487 posts
The hourly Intercity (change in Antwerpen for and from Gent and Brugge) is the easiest way. No reservations and your ticket is valid for any train on that day. Single ticket from Schiphol is around EUR 50 and can be bought on arrival at the Schiphol railway station. Schedule and prices on the site of NS International.
It is not clear whether you intend to have separate stays in Delft, Leiden and Amsterdam. If so, realise the distances between these cities are minimal and trains run every 15 mins. Leiden would make a practical base: 20 mins from Delft, 35 mins to Amsterdam Centraal and 20 mins to Schiphol airport.
The same is for Gent and Brugge, which are 30 mins from each other with several trains per hour. Personally I find Gent a much nicer place to stay than Brugge. Gent is a lively university city, while Brugge can have the atmosphere of an open-air museum.
Posted by
OP
19 posts
Yes, we are spending time in Bruges before Delft, then a few days in Delft, then on to Leiden for 2 days and then finally on to Amsterdam where we will day trip.