The Lemon Fool

Mrs C and I have had 5 or 6 holidays where we have taken the car on a ferry to Zeebrugge or Ijmuiden (Amsterdam) and driven to the South of France or to Tuscany. When we had done the latter we got the Motorail back but there doesn't appear to be a reliable Motorail services at the moment, so that is out.

We are thinking of doing a more Northern European one out of Amsterdam. A couple of years ago we did a town on the Moselle (in Germany), then on to a small town in Belgium, up to Brugges, and then to Utrecht. It was a great trip. So we are thinking of doing something similar where we spend 2 or 3 nights in 4 or 5 places. Any recommended places to visit, bearing in mind that the beginning and end will be Amsterdam? We would probably do Utrecht again as a last stop. I don't mind driving up to 5 hours between places but I don't want to do that between EVERY location.

I'm not looking for anyone to plan a detailed route, but places that are worth making the effort to get to.

Many thanks
C

You might like to look at Apeldoorn, where the Royal Palace Het Loo is interesting. I've stayed there a couple of times at the Hotel der Keiserskroon on business, and a lot of interesting country is within easy reach. One such is Harderwijk on the Zuider Zee. Another hotel we used is at Garderen. That hotel is 't Speulderbos with lots of woods around. Caveat that this was 40 years ago.

TJH

I lived in The Hague for some years. Standard tourist trips for visitors included:

• Mauritshuis. Bite-sized gallery in the middle of The Hague, just outside the parliament. Most famous for multiple Vermeers and more Dutch Masters. Relatively small, so not overwhelming like so many other galleries.
• Delft. Pretty town between The Hague and Rotterdam. Canals, Oude Kerk and Nieuwe Kerk, Town Hall, blue chinaware. Easy to get to on motorway or AMS-ROT train line.
• Keukenhof. Tulip gardens sound dull, but this place is stunning to visit. Sadly it's closed for the season until next spring.
• Kinderdijk. Seven (?) windmills in a row draining a polder along a single canal in a stereotypically picturesque setting just southeast of Rotterdam.
• Maastricht Lively town in the deep southeast finger of the Netherlands squeezed between Germany and Belgium. Different vibe there from the rest of the country as it's a big student town, has hills, and absorbs from the culture of its near neighbours. It's also handily placed for Aachen, Charlemagne and all that kind of thing
• From there it's not far to the Ardennes or even the north of France. Reims and Epernay for some Champagne if you're interested.
• Zeeland in the southwest. Off the beaten track, so much quieter than much of the country. Interesting civil engineering projects for the Deltaworks which isolated multiple mouths of the Maas from the North Sea. Facilitates entry by tunnel to western Belgium for Bruges, Ghent, Ypres instead of driving via Antwerp.

Greg

Depends on how far you want to travel. If you head East in Germany then Cologne is good for a day or so, and Berlin takes ages to see properly, perhapd stopping in Hamburg in one direction and Hanover on the way back.

Paul

Thanks everyone. How does this sound for a driving tour?

(Ijmuiden Ferry)
Maastricht - 3 nights
Ghent - 2 or 3 nights
Bruges - 2 nights
Delft - 2 nights
Utrecht - 3 nights
(Ijmuiden)

Maastricht looks worth 3 nights given we've never been. Ghent and Delft are smaller so maybe 2 nights each. We've been to Bruges many times so perhaps 2 or 3 days there. We've been to Utrecht once before and really liked it so maybe 3 nights there and if we run out of things to do we could get the train to Amsterdam for a day.

C

If I had a car in the Netherlands, I'd not visit cities, I'd visit much smaller places not served by trains. Enhuizen's open air museum, Naarden, Cruquius Pump Museum, Lelystad, that retired dutch flower auction museum, the Ardennes castles etc