A week in the Netherlands - any ideas - or train to Berlin and overnight train to Malmo..

[ChateauMargaux]

I am travelling with my 15 year old daughter and we are considering a week in the Netherlands (due to complicated family summer logistics and her brother doing a hockey camp in Amsterdam).

I don't want to spend the week 'finding ways to kill the time'. We have visited Amsterdam twice in the past 5 years, had a week at the popular campsite Duinrell, visited Texel island and Maastricht which we loved.

This has thrown a curve ball in my holiday plans.. but it might be the best option.. so I am looking to make sure that DD and I have a nice time.

Also considering getting an interrail ticket for us- 4 days travel - taking a train to Berlin, stay for a day, overnight train to Malmo, then to Copenhagen, stay there two nights, then to Hamburg, also one night, return to Amsterdam.. CRAZY??? Or fun?

Would there be somewhere I could leave me car in Amsterdam for 6 days? without breaking the bank..

Probably asking too much.. but interested in ideas and thoughts..

Hi

That sounds like so much fun!

One of my DS is looking into Maastricht Uni because we all also like the city and they offer a lot of subjects in English. I'm not sure how much there is to do though, after an initial visit there.

Berlin sounds dynamic and I'd really like to visit at some point. You mentioned staying just one day though, which is very short. With the suggestions you mentioned, I think they'd all be interesting, but I wouldn't personally try to visit all 4 in 4 days.

Sorry I can't help with the car question.

Do come back and tell us about your trip once you've been.

I’m currently planning something very similar.

you’ll have a great time.

Do it!

What are your dates? There are some great summer events and festivals.

Sounds a bit too much packed in . I'd go to to two of those places for two nights each. The man in seat 61 is your guide for all things train travel related

Sounds a bit far, those are quite long distances and you're not spending long enough in each place to make the travel worthwhile IMO.
How about 2 days in Utrecht then 2 days in Rotterdam or Antwerp?

I'd say that's a lot of time on trains. How about Berlin for longer with a stop off at Lubeck and the Baltic coast either on the way there or back? Berlin is a fantastic city, lots to see and do.

I would absolutely recommend Copenhagen. Stay there or Malmö a couple of nights. It's only half an hour on the train between them so isn't that much time wasted travelling. Loads to do in both for a teenager. We went on a boat trip in Copenhagen and also to Tivoli all in the one day.

Dates 24th to 30th July..

The train journey would be 3 days and one overnight of trains.. 7 days in total.

The inspiration for the journey was I wanted an overnight train.. so Berlin to Malmo fitted that and then to come back a different route it seemed to make sense to stop in Hamburg as there are intercity trains from Copenhagen to Hamburg and then a fairly OK route to Amsterdam.. .

But.. I would be open to other itineraries in and out of Amsterdam by train that take a week.

in that short space of time I’d just stay in Holland - a couple of days in The Hague; a day at the beach and a day at the lake, a couple of days in Rotterdam and a couple of days in Amsterdam.

Seconding Utrecht and Antwerp - loads to see and do in both.
Overnight trains SOUND cool, and I have succumbed to the temptation myself, but looking at them another way, it's paying a lot of money to sleep badly in a noisy, cramped caravan (often NOT ensuite), ending up dragging your cases round a city station at 7am with v little open, when you can't get into your hotel room until 3pm...

I love traveling by (night)train, but there's no way I'd make that many train journeys in the space of 7 days. If there are delays or other hold ups it just becomes incredibly frustrating. If you're really keen to take a night train, why not take one that leaves from Amsterdam? There are now night trains to a handful of destinations in Germany, Austria and Switzerland: www.nightjet.com/en/#/home.

If you wanted to mix it up, you could even take the night train to (for example Vienna), spend a couple of days there, then a local train to Salzburg and then the night train back from there.

However, I think the night trains are super popular this summer and unless you can be flexible with dates you might struggle to book a private compartment.

If night trains are not feasible but you want something a bit more international than just the Netherlands, why not do Antwerp, Cologne and Utrecht? Only takes about 2-3 hours to travel between each of them, but you still get to take in 3 different countries.

The only night trains I know of with sleepers from Amsterdam are down to Vienna or Zurich, but I could be wrong. German trains aren't super reliable so you're likely to get delays which will make for a very long journey.

The trains west to Paris are more reliable. A really nice loop would be Rotterdam, Antwerp, Brussels, Paris/Lille, (Strasbourg), Frankfurt, Cologne and back to Amsterdam. Each of those journeys are only a few hours rather than the 6-7 to Berlin.

Alternatively, you could hire bikes and cycle from one side of the country to the other. You see a lot and its a totally different way to see somewhere with a real sense of achievement.

This sounds like a great fun trip! Copenhagen and Malmo are both lovely places, I recommend. You can actually get a train from Malmo to Copenhagen in 30-40 minutes, so you might benefit from basing yourself in one or the other for the full stay and day-tripping, rather than packing up each day and moving.
No experience of Berlin or Hamburg but sounds lovely. Have a fun!

Having just taking the train from Amsterdam to Hamburg and back I would not advise it. Trains cancelled or terminated without warning so we all had to squeeze on a packed local train, Hamburg station exceedingly busy, thought we would be crushed when we all had to move to a different platform when there was a platform change. Also not easy getting luggage on and off trains (although we had packed for a 2 week cruse - I imagine you would be travelling much lighter than that!)

If you have any interest in gardens can I suggest visiting Floriade. It’s a massive garden event held every 10 years but lasting for months This year I see it’s just outside Amsterdam. We went in 2012 and it was a good day out. Also has music, theatre, DJs, food etc.

Stay in Rotterdam for carnival and Rotterdam Unlimited. It’s an incredible time to be there.

i interrailed up to Hamburg and Copenhagen last year with my DD - really liked both cities but it was a bit of a long slog on the train.

im a fan of the Netherlands so would stay there - eg up to North Holland for some cycling, zanse schans, zuiderzee, marken, volendam, et al - all lovely. Or Rotterdam-delft-Leiden-Utrecht. Or Hoge-veluwe national park, Arnhem etc. Or zeeland and its lovely beaches.

or maybe stay within Germany: Hamburg, luneberg, lubeck and whatnot.

or go south down the Rhine: cologne, Bonn, Mainz, koblenz.

i think you just need to get the ratio of travel time to visiting right; don’t spend all your time in the train.

have a fab time!

Personally I wouldn’t bother with Malmo we went when we went to Copenhagen and wasn’t overly impressed by it. It was nice but nothing special, much nicer places with more to do in Sweden. I would have a bit more time in Copenhagen or stop in Malmö for a few hours and then get the train into Copenhagen

Are you talking about this summer? If so I would get a train into Germany then buy a 9 euro ticket which can be used throughout the month of July or August to go on any regional trains second class and also all local public transport. We are in Germany at the moment, and have visited several cities. We just hop on and off the u-bahn, bus, s-bahn, tram and slow stopping rail absolutely care free in whichever city we are in.

Stay longer in Berlin. It's a fantastic city. Skip Malmo and Copenhagen but do them individually another time.

Well.. we went and had a blast!! Train bookings were challenging but booking directly with the train company helped. The night train was fully booked so we had to leave Berlin for another time. We had more time in Hamburg than Copenhagen which was not ideal but all travel is good!! Copenhagen was amazing, we walked our feet off, loved the design museum and the lego shops were so cool. Icing on the cake was posting my location on facebook which resulted in a totally unexpected but wonderful early morning catch up. Hamburg was a bit grim and grotty, not helped by being there on a Monday when most Museums were closed. Our stop on the way back was better as I sought out an outdoor swimming spot and ended up in a beautiful area. We enjoyed the trains.. all worked well, hostels were hit and miss, we had lovely camping days before and afterwards and a couple of little side trips en route to and from Amsterdam, Leiden was lovely.

Glad you had a nice trip!

Thanks for sharing, glad it all went well!

Glad you had a good trip, thank you for the update.