So, I don't even have this year's vacation out of the way and I'm already thinking about next year (I think we all do that...lol).
Tulip time in the Netherlands is on my bucket list.
My very preliminary itinerary looks something like this...(trying to incorp Good Friday next year to give us an extra day)
Apr 13 fly overnight to London, arriving...
2 nights (Apr 14/15) London (to visit some friends, work off the jet lag)
3 nights (Apr 16/17/18) train to somewhere in Belgium...Bruges? Brussels (looks easier to get to from London...with daytrip to Bruges)? Better suggestions?
This is just a thought and am certainly not tied to...
2 nights (Apr 19/20) Cologne (or, add an extra night to Belgium and an extra night to Nether)
3 nights (Apr 21/22/23) somewhere in Nether - what I want to see is windmills and tulips...where is a good central spot (tentatively may rent a car for these three nights)...Utrecht? Rotterdam? The Hague?
5 nights (Apr 24/25/26/27/28) Amsterdam and fly home on the 29th.
This would be our first visit to these areas (other than London). Is 5 nights too much for Ams? I feel it'll be a long time before we ever returned (too many places to see on my wish list) so I'd like to see as much as I can. I would assume we would do a day trip to the tulip fields and maybe spend some time in Haarlem. So just wondering if Cologne is a bit of an outlier - should I add those two nights to Belgium and/or Nether?
EDIT MAR 20 - in case someone didn't see my reply in the middle - most likely I would change the direction of travel because of airmiles (less airmiles to fly out of Belgium than Netherlands) so we would still do London first, but then Amsterdam/countryside/Belgium (fly home from Brussels). Most likely will cut Cologne.