Money Matters
hoffse
member
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
MM trip report
Well we just got back from our trip to Germany and Belgium. We were there for 8 or so days and saw Cologne, Bonn, and Aachen in Germany, and then Brussels, Bruges, Ghent, and Antwerp in Belgium. We also took a day trip to Amsterdam. It was busy, but everything is very close, so we just used the regional trains for the most part. I kept better track of what we spent this time, so decided I would report back.
Flights: used points, plus $75 each for taxes
Hotels: used points for 3 nights in Cologne and paid for 3 nights in Brussels near the Grand Place and 1 night at the airport. That ended up being about $400 total. I actually cancelled and re-booked our hotel near the Grand Place after Brussels shut down over Thanksgiving, because they had a ton of cancellations and seriously dropped the price!
We spent about $590 the week before we left booking a last-minute day trip to Amsterdam. This was WAY more than we would have spent had my H firmed up plans with family in advance, but there you have it. This amount included high-speed train tickets, tickets to the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh museum, and the Christmas day concert at the Concertgebouw.
Once we were there we spent right at $1600 on food, local transport, entry fees, souvenirs, and nearly all of our Christmas shopping. I'm scared to admit this on the MM board, but of that $1600, about $175 was chocolate.... (gifts though!). I had budgeted $2300 for all of this, so we still came in $700 under budget!
And here's a flash summary of our impressions, since I know a few others are going to that region next year.
Favorite city: Bruges, but Amsterdam was a very close second and probably would win if we had spent more time there.
Least favorite city: Cologne - it got seriously bombed in WWII and was a lot more modern than we were expecting. The beer houses were cool, but each only served the kind they brewed themselves (all of which were variations on the same local style), so hard to find a variety. All of Belgium had a MUCH bigger variety
Best food I ate: a Liege waffle covered in chocolate that I bought from a waffle shop in Antwerp (price: 2.50)
Best beer I drank: Jupiler in Brussels (though I admit I'm not a beer snob and prefer light beers)
Favorite attraction: Aachen cathedral. Without question the most interesting cathedral I've ever seen, and I've visited nearly 40 in Europe.
Most unique thing we saw: This is a tie between Charlemagne's throne in Aachen cathedral and the world's oldest printing press in Antwerp.
Overpriced: Van Gogh museum - if we had been there longer I would have bought one of the museum passes, but we wouldn't have gotten our money out of it for this trip. Admission was 17 euros, and I thought it was worth about 8-10 euros for the collection they have there.
Best splurge: Christmas concert by the Concertgebouw orchestra in Amsterdam. We spent over $200 for tickets because all of the cheap seats were sold out when we got them, but it was amazing and worth every penny. It was, without question, the best professional orchestra I've ever heard live. It was a very special way to spend Christmas!
Overall, we had a great trip! I was expecting to like Germany more than Belgium, but the opposite was true. I liked Germany, but I really loved Belgium. That's a good thing, because H has a lot of family there, and we will be going back at some point! We were both extremely impressed by Amsterdam as well, and I think the next time we go to Belgium we will pair it with the Netherlands to spend more time in Amsterdam and the surrounding area.
EDIT: I'm going to try to upload some pictures tonight or tomorrow. We are both at work today and haven't even unloaded the car yet!
Re: MM trip report
So glad to hear your trip went well and that you all are back safe and sound. The Christmas concert you all went to in Amsterdam sounds like an amazing way to spend the holiday.
Thanks for all the tips!
Out of curiosity, how did you like Brussels itself? Travel forums are pretty down on it, but I think it looks like it has some really pretty architecture.
It has been crazy! In NOLA, we had a record high of 82 degrees on Xmas Day and tied for the record high on Xmas Eve.
@hoffse, that is such a nice bonus the weather was so wonderful. 50s is definitely WAY better than 30s!