Driving from Bruges to Amsterdam

You could stop at Kinderdijk near Rotterdam. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site and has 19 windmills. Very pretty. This is really a car only type of place. I am guessing it would be difficult to get to with public transportation.

I'm skeptical it would be cheaper to drive. Have you also factored in gas, possible drop off-fees, and insurance? One way-fare from Bruges to Amsterdam CS is 46 euros. The Keukenhof Gardens are easy to reach by train as well. The train to Amsterdam stops at Schipol Airport, at Schipol there are direct shuttle buses to the garden......it's near the airport. To reach Kinderdijk, there are direct shuttle buses from Rotterdam-south station, and Utrecht Centraal Station.

What Michael said. If you want to drive, get into the Netherlands and pick up the car there. Or else plan on taking it back to Belgium.

We will be there mid-June, after tulip season. The train price I found online is $70 each and the car rental price with the different drop-off point is $145, without gas.

Did you get that price from Rail Europe:) If so, they overcharge on ticket prices. The price for the regular inter-city trains is 46 Euros which works out to about 60 USD ( http://www.nshispeed.nl/en). No advance reservations are required or possible, simply purchase the tickets at the station on the day of your journey. You typically have to change trains in Antwerp.

If driving around the Antwerpen ring roads be sure you are going the right direction. Be on the lookout, especially in the Netherlands, but throughout Europe, for little gray boxes next to the road, sometimes in the central reservation, some distance after a graphic of a camera or binoculars. The Dutch and French and English and Welsh are exceedingly picky about speeders and those boxes are speed cameras which take photos and send large tickets after you via your rental company. Harder by train? Hmmm. Not many places you can't get by train, bus, treintaxi or a combination in the Netherlands pretty straightforwardly. Ah, I know. If you go nearly due north from Brugge towards the river crossing along the islands in far southwest Netherlands there is a car ferry which will take you up the Zeedijk and then up into the Randstadt. I don't think that's easily done by train, certainly not in a speedy way. Good luck planning. BTW, the Netherlands has more expensive fuel than the UK. Plan on €1.40 to €1.60 per litre, about a quart. That's around €6.00 a US gallon, at whatever exchange rate. I'm not sure you'll wind up cheaper.

Rebecca, Don't let everyone here except me- talk you out of driving if you want to drive. Driving gives you a lot of flexibility and ability to get lots more done in one day. And there is always the benefit of having a place to store your luggage while you run in and out seeing stuff. Yes, you can store luggage at train stations. but putting it in the trunk one time in the morning is soooo much less hassle. It would be worth it to me to have a car even if it cost a bit more. The speed camera thing is very real tho We used our Garmin Nuvi GPS that had the traffic camera alert function . It would ding every time we were near the cameras. I am sure it saved us a bundle in traffic tickets.

Just to point out that the route you intend to drive has some of the worst traffic in Europe. The scenery along the roads in the Netherlands isn´t that great. Rather industrial, actually. And a car in Amsterdam is pretty useless.

Driving in Amsterdam can be tough. On my first visit the taxi driver got us close then was bogged down in traffic (only one or two narrow lanes along the canals). he pointed out our hotel and suggested we walk the last 100 feet so he wouldnt have to hit that hotel side track

Rebecca, my husband and I did a "big bus" tour of Edam/Volendam/Marken for a day at the end of November. Took the bus because the weather was so bad and I was already wearing 4 layers including an Eddie Bauer down coat. If you can go on your own, do it so you can stay longer in those towns, as well as stop at Zaanse Schans, which Rick mentions.

Thanks, based on all the replies we are going to take the train, but then consider more rural day trips- like the Waterland area with Edam. With 4 nights in Amsterdam (3 1/2 days), any recommendations on day trips between Delft/Hague/Haarlem vs. Edam/Volendam/Marken?

My favorite day trip is the Delt/Hague combo described in Rick's guidebook; preferably on the weekend when the open-air markets are in operation. Haarlem is nice, but if you are prioritizing, I would go with Delft instead. But if you don't mind rushing around a bit, it is possible to do all three in one-day; Haarlem and Delft are on the same train line.