Money Matters
bmo88
member
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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.
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Amsterdam/Brussels in March
Hi Everyone,
We are in the early stages of planning a trip for the last week of March 2017. We have a lot of rewards points to use (about $2,800) and we are budgeting up to an extra $1,500 for the trip.
After some initial research, I found tickets through Chase Ultimate Rewards for $525 a person, which seems super cheap to me for a 7 day trip. That would leave about $1,800 to pay for hotels and activities with reward points, meaning we might not even need to spend above rewards amount.
My question is: is March 24-April 2 a good time to visit Brussels and Amsterdam?
I was hoping to gain some insights from those who have visited, including @hoffse.
Also, ideas on what to do, where to stay and places to eat would be appreciated!
Side note: We are actively TTCing, so this may possibly be a "babymoon" trip for us...so something to also keep in mind that I could potentially be between 1-4 months pregnant if we are successful between now and then.
ETA: A quick Kayak search shows tickets as low as $475 each. But the bummer is that we couldn't use our rewards points if we did that.
We are in the early stages of planning a trip for the last week of March 2017. We have a lot of rewards points to use (about $2,800) and we are budgeting up to an extra $1,500 for the trip.
After some initial research, I found tickets through Chase Ultimate Rewards for $525 a person, which seems super cheap to me for a 7 day trip. That would leave about $1,800 to pay for hotels and activities with reward points, meaning we might not even need to spend above rewards amount.
My question is: is March 24-April 2 a good time to visit Brussels and Amsterdam?
I was hoping to gain some insights from those who have visited, including @hoffse.
Also, ideas on what to do, where to stay and places to eat would be appreciated!
Side note: We are actively TTCing, so this may possibly be a "babymoon" trip for us...so something to also keep in mind that I could potentially be between 1-4 months pregnant if we are successful between now and then.
ETA: A quick Kayak search shows tickets as low as $475 each. But the bummer is that we couldn't use our rewards points if we did that.
Re: Amsterdam/Brussels in March
That timing will have you there for the opening week of Keukenhof Gardens, which is outside of Amsterdam. We missed it by a week! You'll definitely want to see it.
We stayed in an Air BnB in Amsterdam's Jordaan neighborhood. We loved it! The Centrum would have been a bit busy for us to actually stay in and it was nice to be able to cook some meals. It may be helpful to know that many Air BnBs in Amsterdam are actually illegal. I believe it's only legal to rent your place out for 60 days a year, and the city is cracking down on offenders. Our first reservation was cancelled while we were on our way to the airport because the owner had been fined, but an AirBNB rep helped us find something comparable.
Our apartment cost around $1000 for the week. I think it's possible you'd spend over your reward points, but not by too much. We spent around $1000 on food/activities/transport, etc. but we weren't being too budgety. We're not shoppers, but we are doers and drinkers.
We we loved the standard tourist attractions, especially the museums, but also loved our day trips to Delft, den Haag, and Haarlem. The Haarlem windmill was a highlight, as was the Mauritishuis museum We were in your same position re. TTC, but I did not end up pregnant and so we also drank a lot of European beer. We regret not going to Gouda. We got the Museumkaart and found it a great value since we could duck in and out of small museums around the country without nickel and diming ourselves. Heads up-most of Haarlem's attractions are closed Monday's. We goofed that up.
In Amsterdam we walked everywhere, but public transport was pretty simple too. We just like walking. A meal highlight was Indonesian food, but I forget the name of the place. Lunch was often beer and cheese. Oh goodness, the cheese. Hard cheeses are their specialty, so you can enjoy them even if pregnant (I think? I have been). The Tropenmuseum was an off the beaten path highlight, as was Our Lord In The Attic.
We did Brussels as a day trip via high speed rail (the Thalys). We booked in advance and picked a Tuesday for the cheapest tickets. One day was enough (for us); if we had extra days in Belgium we would have done Brugges and/or Antwerp. Our highlight in Brussels was the Cantillon brewery. We are big beer fans but I don't think you need to be to appreciate this attraction. It is always wonderful to me to see something, anything, being made in the classic way by true masters of their craft. I felt the same way about the Delft pottery factory. They can only brew at certain times a year when the weather conditions are just right, and then the beer is aged for years to perfection. We were there during a tense week for the city and tension was palpable as we walked around. The city felt on edge, but it was also truly beautiful and I'm glad we went.
I know we went around Easter/spring break because the band was through a community college. The weather was like spring in Chicago but everything was greener. I did wear a winter coat but it was comfortable to walk around outside. At one stop, there was a huge field of daffodils and they were in bloom if that helps with weather.
I know now every pregnancy is different, but with both of mine I felt absolutely miserable for the first trimester. I would not have wanted to travel to Europe then. I was puking a ton and beyond tired all the time. You might want to consider holding off on TTC so you're not in your first tri during the trip.
@smerka: Yeah, I know every pregnancy is different and I am not sure how it will affect me. But technically my fertile window just ended yesterday and we tried, so that's done. If this cycle wasn't successful, we will try in December. If I were to get pregnant then, my first trimester would be over by early March, so I would be in the second trimester. If we are still trying in January, then it could get iffy.
Weather will be chilly, but not too cold. Like @Xstatic said, this is when the tulips start blooming (though it's on the early side), so it's not going to be freezing cold or anything. It might be damp.
I would split your time 50-50 between Belgium and the Netherlands. From a sight-seeing perspective, Amsterdam needs two full days. I would devote a separate day to the gardens and Haarlem (they are close, basically a suburb of Amsterdam) and then take a day trip either to the Hague/Delft (same train line - can be seen in one day) or Kinderdijk for the windmills (check and make sure Kinderdijk is open that time of year).
In Belgium, base yourself in Brussels and spend the money to stay near the Grand Place. Hotel rates there are reasonable. I think it's best at night, so you want to be close enough to walk. I suggest picking a hotel between the Grand Place and Central Station for day trips. Realistically, you can see the best of Brussels in the evening without devoting an entire day to it, though there is enough to see to fill a long afternoon on a landing/arrival day.
In Belgium I recommend devoting a day to Bruges and Antwerp and then a longer day trip to Aachen, Germany if you are an architecture lover.
Bruges is picture perfect - the entire town is a UNESCO world heritage site, and it's fairly sizeable. Leave early for Bruges and you might have time to swing by Ghent on your way back to Brussels (they are on the same train line). Ghent is also darling, but it's much smaller. The highlights of Ghent are a series of churches all in a row in the old town. One of them has the Ghent Altarpiece by van Eyck. I literally cried when I saw it, but I'm an art nerd. If you don't have time to see both, devote the day to Bruges over Ghent.
Antwerp is even bigger than Bruges so it needs its own day, but it's a fabulous city. It's home to the world's oldest printing press in the print museum (which happens to be the only museum on the UNESCO world heritage list). Seriously, the print museum is amazing if you like history. And city is vibrant, great atmosphere, etc. I had the best street waffle of my life there from the guy at the tiny waffle shop that only sells waffles with chocolate or whipped cream toppings...
And Aachen.... it's a long-ish train ride, but under 2 hours, and the cathedral there is a show-stopper if you like architecture. Charlemagne was based in Aachen and built the cathedral. They still have his throne, which you can see if you take the tour. It's this interesting east-west plan based largely on the Hagia Sophia with stained glass windows that were later added to mimic the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. It's only worth it if you like architecture, but if you do... it's absolutely worth it. I have visited more than 50 churches/cathedrals in Europe and Aachen is actually my #1 so far (followed closely by San Marco in Venice at #2).
It sounds like a lot of day trips, but everything is so compact that it takes no time at all. If you were visiting Paris you would spend more time on the metro crossing the city than it takes to get from Brussels to Antwerp or whatever.
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is excellent. It's the national art museum of the Netherlands. One of my favorite things about it is that it's curated wonderfully. They have tons of galleries, but one is called the "Hall of Honor." This has everything that's really famous in the museum in one place, arranged chronologically, ending with Rembrandt's Night Watch. There is no need to walk around the whole museum to find the famous stuff. You can spend less than an hour there and feel like you have seen the most important bits. I wish more museums would do this.
I was a bit disappointed in the Van Gogh museum, but I am probably in the minority on that. It doesn't have anything terribly famous (except the Irises), but it's a good collection to show Van Gogh's artistic progression. The cafe there is really good and not terribly expensive.
The museumkaart does cover the Anne Frank house, but you still need reservations, which you can book online.
If you like classical music at all, try to catch a concert at the Concertgebouw. It houses one of the best orchestras in the world, and they are so popular that tickets do sell out in advance. We are going to hear them play Mahler 5 on Friday, and my H is absolutely stoked.
I will say, thank you for confirming my idea of doing a bunch of "day trips" to Antwerp, Bruges, Brussels, (brief stop in Ghent) and outside of Amsterdam. When I researched train times, they all seemed so close. We did a similar thing when we went to Europe earlier this year and it worked out well.
I booked the tickets! I still have about $535 left in rewards on my card and DH has another $800. So I think we can actually swing this trip with only spending a couple hundred out of pocket. We are so excited!
If you stay near Dam square or in the Jordaan district in Amsterdam you will be close enough to walk to the Centraal station (10-15 min or so, depending).
For Brussels, get on google maps and find the walking route from the Grand Place to Gare Central (it's a 5 min walk). Then pick a hotel that's near that route.
Once you are on the train, none of these places are over an hour away. Trains run all day long, multiple trains per hour, and I think you can usually buy an open ticket to leave whenever.
English is widely spoken in all of these places, and the train stations all have little visitor kiosks where you can get local maps, etc. It makes getting around very simple. The visitor kiosk in Antwerp was actually memorable because the guy was so. freaking. excited. that we were Americans visiting his "enchanting" city that he spent about 15 minutes with us circling things and giving us all sorts of tips about where to go/what to see, etc. It made a great impression!
PS: In Brussels make sure to stop at the Galeries Royales Sainte-Hubert. It's a high-end shopping area right off the Grand Place with a huge Neuhaus chocolate shop. The last time we were there, they were experimenting with chocolate mousse to go. It was like getting an ice cream, except it was mousse. With toppings. And only 4 euros! I really hope that whoever thought of that got some kind of award, because it was flipping delicious!
We split the Rijks up into a few visits since we had a full week in Amsterdam. Another benefit of the museumkaart!