stay in Haarlem or Amsterdam + general itinerary question

Amsterdam! Haarlem is nice as a day trip but it's dead at night, the action is in Amsterdam.

Haarlem, except on the main square on a weekend, tends to be nice and quiet for sleeping at night where many of the streets of Amsterdam can be quite busy and loud into the night, is my experience.

One man's meat...

Gent is very close to Brussels so why not stay there and save yourself another check out/schlep/check in/orientate cycle.

You can get to the airport (which one, I ask, Charleroi or National) pretty easily from Gent if you want to.

Hello!
Thanks for the help everyone! Nigel, we fly out of National from Brussels. I had 3 nights in Ghent, wouldn't more than that get kind of boring, or no?

Thanks!

It is your holiday, not mine. I prefer not to pack up and move a very short distance and stick with a home base. Gent is half way between Bruges and Brussels, with easy connections to Antwerpen.

Of all of those cities I personally find Brussels least attractive and while the Grand Place is big and has nifty architecture it is similar to what you will see in most Belgian and Dutch towns on a bigger scale; the boy (and around the corner the girl and around another corner the dog) with the need to relieve him/her/its self are OK but I wouldn't go miles out of my way for them.

So if you like to keep moving - move. Just be aware of the overhead time involved.

Thank you, Nigel.

Thanks, guys.

We are going to be there at about the same time. Arriving in Amsterdam on July 21st. We have been there before and will be basing out of Amsterdam and staying in the Jordaan neighborhood. Quiet and beautiful. We will be day tripping from there. You can easily day trip to Delft and The Haage from Amsterdam....we stayed in Breda for a couple of nights last time we were there and day tripped. Loved Breda. When we were in Belgium we stayed in Ghent and absolutely loved it. From there we day tripped to Brugge and Brussels. So easy.

Have a great trip!