Recommendations for vacation in Belgium/Netherlands

[Ser Clegane]

After last year's vacation in France was so much fun, my wife and I decided to visit our neighbours in Belgium and the Netherlands this September for a round trip.

Any recommendations on which places to visit?

We plan for ~15 days (splitting the time roughly 60:40 between Belgium and NL).

Currently we have the following palces on our "short list"

Belgium:
- Bruges
- Antwerp
- Brussels
- Ghent
- Leuven
- Grottes de Han

Netherlands:
- Den Haag
- Utrecht
- s'Hertogenbosch
- Leiden
- Kinderdijk
(we will skip Amsterdam as we have been there several times)

Are there some "gems" and/or "must sees" that we should include but do not have on the list yet (or any special recommendations for the places we already have on the list)? Anything we might remove because it would be somewhat redundant? (the current list already seems long for 15 days so for any additions we would consider removing something)

Any other usefuls ideas/websites etc.?

Thanks a lot in advance for hints

[Rhyfelwyr]

You could visit Fragony.

You should try to be in the Netherlands if they win the world cup, then you can deck yourself in orange and celebrate on the Twelfth. I know it's what I'll be doing (don't infract me! ).

[Tellos Athenaios]

If you are traveling by car, make sure you don't attempt to get in/out of Den Haag or Utrecht at rush hour (starts roughly at 16:00, ends about 19:00 - 20:00 depending on where you are). Especially not Den Haag, those traffic jams are nasty. Leiden is a bit right in the middle of that (so while Leiden itself may not be so bad, you may end up caught in the traffic jams around Rotterdam or Den Haag or Utrecht depending on where you are staying instead.)

Leiden is also a centre of sinology and oriental studies, its hortus botanicus reflects that. As does the Museum Volkenkunde and the Siebold Huis. (Siebold was a doctor who went to Japan and managed to smuggle quite a few 17th century Japanese objects out of the country against a fairly explicit ban by the then Shogun; but on the other hand he did bring them a lot of medical advancement and expertise so I guess that this is why they were lenient with him.) Another museum you may want to consider is RMO (Rijksmuseum van Oudheden).

When in Den Haag you may also want to visit Madurodam (in Scheveningen, which is about right next to Den Haag) which is a park with minitatures of all sorts of Dutch sites. Can be fairly busy at times.

If you like trains (or royalty) you probably want to visit Spoorweg Museum in Utrecht which is located in the old Maliebaan railway station, has right now an exposition of Royal Carriages (not just Dutch btw, carriages from all over Europe): it is still a working station in the sense there are occasional services between it and Centraal. More of an interesting tidbit than interesting to spend your day actively looking at: Utrecht has of course the Oude Gracht, which is hard too miss (much the same way you can't miss the Prinsengracht or Herengracht in Amsterdam) but it is fairly unique in how it got built and in the fact that there's some exceedingly rare fauna in there (due to the type of structures and the fact that underneath it run pipes which carry hot water). EDIT: The Oude Gracht is however a nice location for dinner. If the David (casa di david) is still around, that is a nice place to go.[**]

If you *are* traveling by car it may be worth doing a bit of a round trip around some of the older, smaller towns in North Holland. The idea is that while none of those towns is so particularly appealing to spend a day driving for, most of them do make a decent stop/break to cut the tedium and there's some nice scenery (flowers, dikes, mills) that tourists seem to like so much about the Netherlands you'll drive through. Also, if you want to visit the beach or simply cool off Callantsoog should fit in nicely; driving south to Shoorl you eventually get a nice dune landscape for stretching your legs a bit again -- and you can avoid a fair amount of traffic as it runs parallel to (but 10-20 km to the west of) the highway. A real place to spend some time however could be the Zuiderzeemuseum in Enkhuizen[*]. It is re-enactment which is considerably more fun if you have kids (or if you are a small kid yourself) than if you don't have them, though.

Alternatively you can do a similar trip through Friesland, which lacks the flowers (and the dunes) but does offer two different things: Skûtsjesilen (a race for Tjalks/Skutsje, with bonus points for sailing close to the water) and Eise Eisinga planetarium.
[*] Similar museums in concept but IMO not quite as much fun: Archeon (Alphen aan de Rhijn; does some Roman and Medieval history), Openluchtmuseum (Arnhem; does farms).

Note I have not been to all those activities/places/attractions or when I have I may no longer remember it sufficiently accurately to be of much help. So best to google around a bit.

[**]As for Utrecht a little “nice” thing to see is the Nijntje pleintje which is just that: “nice”. There are lots of musea in Utrecht, Leiden and just about every place of some significance in the Netherlands has at least one anyway. So the best thing to do is to google the town/city name you intend to go to, plus the keyword “museum” or “musea”. Also a wikipedia lookup of the places you intend to visit helps a lot.

[Moros]

Rush hour problems are even worse around Brussels, nor would I recommend to travel by car to anwerps during rush hour.
All the places you mention are easy accessable by train.

What kind of interests do you have? It depends on what you want to see, like, visit,... Always feel free to pm or ask questions about any place in Belgium. I also know my way pretty well in Amsterdam... So if you need any tips.

Also If you go visit Belgium and the Netherlands, you might also be interested in some of the weastern places of Germany? Trier is great if you like Roman history (and is very close by), Köln is a bit farther but has a great art museum of about the same class as Centre Pompidou, the Tate,... Amsterdam has the Van Gogh museum which is great as well. One tip if you go to Amsterdam don't visit the Anne Frank museum, the wait time is immense and not worth it at all. Don't take a boat trip either, Amsterdam is a rather filthy and ugly city (I think Liège is much prettier), but has some interesting to visit. Walking in the red light district can be funny and entertaining as well, yes even with your wife. I walked through it even with my mother and I must say it was an interesting and amusing sight. If you go to Belgium you should taste and try some beers, I knowsome great adresses for that if you need.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Also: if you need to ask someone in the Netherlands for help, don't try German. Best to stick with English (unless you know your Dutch).

[Cyclops]

My brother took his family to the Hague for a court case (he's a lawyer not a defendant) and their 6-year old son really disliked the Netherlands. He said to me when he got back "you might as well go in a field and stick your bottom in the air as go to Holland!". Highly articulate child, I was stunned.

The rest of the family loved the countryside and had lovely fun cycling and picnicking. Apparently they found the food a bit of a challenge and darted over to Belgium and France for a decent meal from time to time.

Also: if you need to ask someone in the Netherlands for help, don't try German. ....

Is it true they ask Germans for their grandfathers bicycles back?

[Tellos Athenaios]

My brother took his family to the Hague for a court case (he's a lawyer not a defendant) and their 6-year old son really disliked the Netherlands. He said to me when he got back "you might as well go in a field and stick your bottom in the air as go to Holland!". Highly articulate child, I was stunned.

Court cases in Den Haag or Kinderdijk etc. are a bit boring for a six year old.

Is it true they ask Germans for their grandfathers bicycles back?

If they can manage to utter a single correct sentence in German at all? Trouble is that quite a few people seem to assume it's only polite (or an excellent excuse) to answer in mock “Swiss” from when they were in highschool while butchering the vital cues of grammar, vocabulary and idiom you've come to rely on for surviving Switzerland. So it gets tricky if you need help with your satnav.