I'm being sent by my work to Venlo in the Netherlands (free trip to Europe , cool !!!). I'm flying into Brussels and will need to get myself over to Venlo for the week's work. When finished with my business trip in Venlo on Friday I'm planning on touring Paris for a couple of days on the weekend.
In looking into the logistics of train travel via the web between these points it looks as if it can be done via a combination of local round-trip train travel between Brussels (Midi station) and Venlo and then a Thalys high speed train one way from Brussels (Midi) to Paris (Nord) on Friday late afternoon or early evening.
I wanted to run this plan by this group to see what if any "catches" there are to it, and to better understand how I go about obtaining the necessary tickets. Since this trip involves crossing country borders it seems sort of complicated when looking at some of the web sites (Thalys site for example implies that I need an advance ticket to travel between countries).
I have no problems getting the tickets in advance since I know the days involved and about when time-wise I'll be ready to ride the trains. I just wanted some advice on whether I should attempt to buy these tickets on-line ahead of time or wait until I arrive in Brussels next Sunday. THANKS!!!!