Help with 20 day itinerary? Benelux-France

My formatting did not work very well! to clarify:
1 night will be spent in-flight. 4 nights Paris. 1 night Luxembourg. 3 nights Amsterdam. 1 night Antwerp. 4 nights Bruges. 3 nights Brussels. 3 nights London.

I think that 4 nights in Bruges and 3 nights in Brussels may be too many. Consider 2 nights in Bruges and 2 nights in Brussels--then chose another destination for 3 additional nights.

It sounds like a great trip!

A couple of notes...

Luxembourg- there is no logical stop on your itinerary to visit this city as a daytrip, so you may as well stay the night. Nice town, but don't spend too much time here.

Orval- Check carefully! Access to the Trappist breweries is very limited, either by appointment only or on one of the very few days they open to the public. Also, to go anywhere outside of the main cities in Belgium without a car, you will probably need to research the bus schedules (www.infotec.be for Wallonia, www.delijn.be for Flanders). For breweries in general in Belgium, few regularly open their doors to tourists. De Half Maan (brewers of Brugeszot) in Bruges is rare in that it offers frequent tours.

Bruges- Four days is a little long. I would spend an extra night somewhere else, like Paris, Antwerp, London or Brussels

Thanks! Orval is important to us because we are able to get into the Brewery part for a special tour while we'll be there! I've not had much luck with the bus schedules in terms of getting there...but Tom, I see you've replied to my other thread in the transportation section so I will send you a PM!

As for reducing the time in some of the places I've mentioned - hmm, I appreciate the advice, but is this really more of personal preference type thing? I just want to make sure we're not absolutely bonkers for wanting do stay longer in some of those places--- We really dislike packing up and moving on from location to location even when we travel in North America so I highly doubt we'll be eager to do that there either. I've also been in touch with numerous people who have lived in Belgium / Holland or spent a lot of time there and many have suggested that we could easily want to stay, in Bruges for instance, for a week. In other words, relaxing is what we're into, not so much seeing tourist attractions or seeing a lot of different cities.

With that in mind, how much booking ahead should we be doing in terms of accomodations? Flexibility would be great in case we do end up wanting to leave a place early, or stay somewhere else longer...

Been there - done that - IMO Burges-3 nites / Brussels-1 nite

Sarah, of course how much time to spend is a matter of taste, and good for you for knowing what you want.

I have to admit, though, that I had the same reaction about Brugges and Brussels: great places, but not a patch on Paris, London, or even Amsterdam.

Have a great trip!

We planned to spent 1 night in Brussels and 5 nights in Bruges -- finally omitting the night in Brussels -- just stopped to sightsee on our way to Bruges from Amsterdam. Had a great apt in Bruges central to everything (send me a PM if you are interested). Bruges is a very lovely, relaxing place to be. My husband was very into the Belgian beer while I was into the Belgian chocolate and Belgian lace.

I found Brussels to have really beautiful old neighborhoods to walk around in. The last time we were there, we ended up at this great street festival that seemed to cover the whole neighborhood and was packed with all kinds of ethnic food stands, great music, etc. Brussels has some great museums too, along with a lot of Art Nouveau architecture, and a wonderful Botanical Garden. I like Brugge a lot and have been there about 4-5 times, but have usually been there in the winter. We went once in the summer and we couldn't wait to get away, there were so many tourists there. There is nothing quaint about massive amounts of tour buses.

I found Antwerp to be really interesting, and would like to go to Ghent sometime.

Oostende is another interesting place to go to and is only a 15 min. train ride from Brugge. Go check out the North Sea while you are there. Ride the Coast tram, and walk the dunes, visit the German gun emplacements left over from the war.

Sarah, if you want to spend time in Brussels, don't let people talk you out of it. The city is very worthwhile to explore.

Forgot to mention one thing... Ghent is a very easy daytrip from Bruges. Wonderful old center, although most of the rest of the city is pretty uninteresting.

Thanks to all for the continuing advice.

In terms of setting up home base in Bruges and doing daytrips to Ghent and Antwerp, is this going to be better economically speaking? Or would it be best to knock one off on of those places on the WAY to Bruges, to avoid using an extra travel day on a railpass?

We're now looking at doing a rail/drive pass since getting to the Orval brewery is clearly going to be difficult by other modes of transport. We're thinking now of starting with 4 nights in Paris, then getting a car for 2 days and driving first to Orval, then to Luxembourg for that night, then up to Dusseldorf for a night, then to Amsterdam where we'd ditch the car.

From Amsterdam we'd be doing a day trip to Haarlem, then onto the Belgium part of the trip, where the rail pass would presumably come in handy (the package is 5 days - is that overkill?). Any thoughts on this newfound plan hehe? The driving part of the trip looks reasonable - a couple hours here and a couple hours there - and I'd be looking for "free parking" places to stay in both Luxembourg (or nearby) and then Dusseldorf.