My husband and I will be flying to Amsterdam to visit our daughter before joining the Rick Steves' Belgium and Holland Tour that starts in Ghent. We have two and a half days to travel before meeting the tour. Since we will be seeing plenty of Amsterdam, we were considering flying to Luxembourg City, then taking the train to Brussels, and then on to Ghent. But we really could fly many other places. If you had those 2 1/2 days, where would you recommend going?
Posted by
oklahoma
1022 posts
Hi Lynn - We did that tour the end of April-first part of May. We were to fly into Brussels and stay in Brussel 2 1/2 days also before Ghent, but United cancelled our Flight(due to the bombing) so we had to change to Amsterdam arrival then take the train to Brussels (because we already had a paid hotel reservation). Otherwise, I probably would have changed it around. It did not plan this trip well, we just played things by ear. When we arrived, it was raining, cold, hailing on us and rained the first 4 days or so. I wanted to go to Luxembourg City myself. I thought about doing a day trip to LC by train on one of our days, but since it was raining and crappy weather, we stayed in Brussels. If I researched more ahead of time I would have gone on a day trip thru Vitor(sp?) that had a day trip to LC. You may want to check into that. Another thought is to go to Antwerp with it is not being on the tour. I hear it is a nice city.
Hope this gives you some insight
Kim
IT was a great trip. Loved it all!
Posted by
Massachusetts
1069 posts
I stayed in Antwerp, Belgium for 3 days before I took this tour a few years ago. From Antwerp, it's an easy train ride to Ghent.
http://www.visitantwerpen.be/
Posted by
New York, NY, USA
11294 posts
First, you have to understand that views of the "Belgian big four" (Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, and Brussels ) are all over the place. People will make recommendations based on their views of these cities.
For me personally, I really liked Antwerp, liked Bruges a lot, was slow to warm to Ghent but liked it in the end, and found most of Brussels distinctly uninspiring, except for my wonderful Art Nouveau tour with ARAU: http://www.arau.org/en/tours. So based on that, and the fact that you're seeing Ghent and Bruges on your tour, I'd say stay in Antwerp for your time before your tour, going to Brussels as a day trip if there's something specific there for you (like an ARAU tour, or a specific museum). But others feel Brussels is indeed underrated and would want you to stay there.
I haven't been to Luxembourg, so I can't comment on that portion.
Posted by
the Netherlands
2487 posts
Mechelen is another nice place to stay a few nights: it's small, but has everything you expect from a historical Flemish city. Right in the middle between Antwerpen and Brussel it's a good base for easy daytrips (trains are ridiculously frequent and take less than half an hour to either city). And it's some one hour from Gent to join your tour group.