Activity / day trip suggestions for our holiday? (France / Netherlands / Belgium)

[YouBelongWithMe]

I'll preface this by saying our holidays always involve us moving across several destinations. We've done it since the kids were very small, and we enjoy not being in the same place.

We have booked our summer holiday and finalised all our stays. We are a family of five (me and DH, DS 18, DDs 16 and 13.) DS loves history and war-related trips. The girls love visiting cities to mooch about and drink coffee and sightsee. All three love water sports.

We have some rough ideas of things to do/places to visit, but if those who are more in the know can add specific suggestions of things to see/do, I'd be so grateful!

Day 1 - fly to Brussels (land 9am) - have a day in Brussels centre. Drive to the Netherlands in the late afternoon.

Day 2-5 - staying at Duinrell. Hoping for a day in Amsterdam and a day in Leiden. My daughter is very arty and we will do some art museums.

Day 6 - drive to Arras (this is booked but can change). Hoping to be able to do something WW2-related along the drive for my son

Day 7-10. Disneyland Paris.

Day 11-15. Staying at Le Croix du Vieux Pont. One day in Paris. The rest I have no idea yet.

Then drive to Brussels and fly home.

I have posted before but that was before we had absolutely nailed down accomodation and flights.

Any suggestions most welcome! Thanks

Between NL and Arras there is Ypres - loads of WWI sites to visit - and the Last Post is amazing. Also the Atlantic Wall museum in Ostend. There is also a fab museum in Dunkirk about the evacuation. Great beach there too. Utrecht is very pretty and as a big Uni city it has a nice buzz - lots of terraces and shops. There's a good beach scene at Scheveningen. Leiden is lovely - there's a windmill and you can do a canal trip.

I’m going to piggyback as I am going to be spending 2 days in Brussels around the grandprix weekend (one before and one after) so looking for things to do and good places to eat.

(it was cheaper to stay in a hotel either side than the Eurostar prices close to the race)

From Le Croix de Vieux Pont, you can visit the amazing fairytale castle at Pierrefonds. Also, Parc Astérix is about an hour’s drive.

Takes you a little out of your way but if your DS is interested in WW1 try to visit Ypres on your way from Netherlands to Arras.

The Hague is worth a visit

Can you stretch your travel a little further than Paris and have a couple of days at Puy du Fou - totally brilliantly bonkers, especially for history lovers. I can't receommend it highly enough.

www.puydufou.com/

Ah we've been before when we've done La Rochelle / Royan and parts of the West coast. I agree, it's excellent!

I'm trying to find a way to shoe-horn another visit in this summer!

If you have a spare day in Paris then I'd defintiely recommend getting on the train to Versaille - it's really spectacular.