Thanks for all the great information we found in this forum. Here's a short report on what we did in late September / early October 2024:
Hotels:
Hotel Alexander (Amsterdam): Great location near Vondelpark and transit. Room small but OK and mattress soft. Lovely deck out back with garden to enjoy when it's not raining.
Hotel Augustyn (Bruges): Canal-side in very quiet area, surprisingly large room, nice breakfast and also a bar, staff very attentive.
Hotel Hegra (Amsterdam): 1600's era canal house, seriously overpriced, after the first flight of stairs the rest of the stairs are essentially ladders and very hard to navigate with a suitcase. In my opinion it was not worth the price to stay in the canal zone (we stayed only one night here).
Restaurants that we made advanced reservations for:
Moeders (Amsterdam) - we both had stampot and really enjoyed it, atmosphere cozy and fun.
Jun Indonesian (Amsterdam) - excellent rijsttafel, everything was delicious.
Seafood Bar (Amsterdam) - we went to the one near Vondelpark, and had the cold mixed platter. Great food and great service.
Tom's Diner (Bruges) - food was excellent, but we ordered the 'chef's table' and the pacing was off, we were there a really, really long time.
Other notes:
In Amsterdam we made advanced bookings for the Rijksmuseum, the Anne Frank House and the Van Gogh museum. All were worth it. Van Gogh museum was really crowded and we saw more foreign tourists there than anywhere else.
We also enjoyed the beer garden in Vondelpark, Cafe t'Smalle for an education in jenever, the art at STRAAT in North Amsterdam, the Dutch Resistance Museum (very thought provoking) and the Albert Cuyp street market.
In Bruges we were able to get into the pubs for both the local breweries without taking a tour. And we were able to climb the bell tower with only a short wait (did not book ahead).
We highly recommend Quasimodo Tours for a day-long tour of Flanders Fields. We stopped at over 10 locations in this all day tour, and Philippe (the owner and tour guide) is an amazing storehouse of information.