Spring European Driving Experience

Introduction

Since returning the Europe with the children I always wanted to do a European driving trip especially in spring. The idea behind a spring trip was always to see the flower fields of the Netherlands. Although for children one flower field is the same as another.

The plan

We really wanted to cover a number of countries and centres on our trip with the largest amount of time reserved for Netherlands. The route to Netherlands would see us going through Brussels. So a stop in Brussels is a natural break to the journey.

Additionally being in banking I always wanted to see what Luxembourg was like, it is not a natural city to be be visiting in Europe and most people would not have heard of it or would be prone to skipping it. With a week to kill i thought I would fill the ambition of visiting Luxembourg City.

So our route was London > Brussels (2 nights) > Luxembourg (1 night) > Amsterdam (3 nights). The routing was driven around the availability of hotels around the time we were planning to visit. Being a very last minute individual this is always a problem for me.

Our route

Our route was as follows, Day 1 was London to Brussels

We did this during late afternoon leaving at 16:00 from London driving down the M20 to Dover. We had a flexible (both ways) ticket booking from Dover to Calais. The ferry crossing took 90 minutes and we lost and hour from the time zone difference.
Once on the other side we just took the motorway and in roughly 2.30min we were in Brussels. We arrived in Brussels at about 22.30 in the evening. The journey along the motorway(E40) was smooth.

Day 2 was spent seeing the sights and eating in Brussels. See the Brussels in a day page (Taking the pis) to see what we covered while there.

Day 3 was a drive and sightseeing in Luxembourg City. The drive is a 2 hours journey along fairly smooth roads and relatively picturesque surroundings

Day 3 night was spent in a hotel in Luxembourg. Luxembourg City is fairly small so its easy to get around. Apart from he city centre with is small with cramped streets the streets are well laid out and its an easy city to navigate. The one things we missed when visiting Luxembourg was Vianden Castle which is about an hour from Luxembourg City. We missed this largely because we left Brussels late and did not really make it to Luxembourg City until 11.00am 

Day 4 was the drive from Luxembourg to Netherlands to see the Kuekenhoff Gardens often called the Gardens of Europe. That drive was a particularly long drive seeing us backtrack a significant part of the journey from an ease perspective. We could have taken alternative routes but we went back via Brussels (outskirts). Our route below is mapped out.

Instead of going directly into Amsterdam we stopped off at Kuekenhoff Gardens first we started from Luxembourg City at 08.00 and reached Kuekenhoff at 12.00. Kuekenhoff is clearly sign posted. The gardens are only open from March to May and I would advise you to book on-line although the queues were not particularly long when we went.

Day 5 and 6 were spent in Amsterdam doing the sights of Amsterdam with Day 7 reserved for the Journey back to the UK with detours to the flower route and Kinderjek (Windmills) on the return leg.

Note if you want to see the Windmills of the Netherlands there seem to be two sights to see working windmills. If you are in Amsterdam and have flow in then the natural place would be Zaanse Schans which is a little north of Amsterdam. From my research the better place was Kinderjik with is to the south of the country and on our way home. There are more details on the Netherlands write up.

Key things to take

1. Red warning triangle if you breakdown
2. High Visibility top (I took my running jacket)
3. Jerry can
4. Lots of torches (one particularly large beamed one)
5. Breakdown tools
6. Car Liquids (Oil, Water, Coolant and windscreen washer fluid

Other notes

• I took out RAC European breakdown cover single trip (GBP60)
• Extended my motor insurance (comprehensive) to be valid across Europe - your local UK cover will only give you Third Party cover when you're on the continent. So check your policy.
• My ferry ticket was a fully flexible out / in ticket with P&O at GBP90 each way. I went flexible as it was only 20 pounds more expensive then the partially flexible.

Parking in Amsterdam

• All the hotels have parking and will charge for parking. You can park on the streets at your own risks. Most cities we went to the parking was fairly straight forward except Netherlands where our hotel didnt have enough parking when we arrived. So we had to park out of town using one of the government provided parking point. There is a Park and Ride (P+R) mechanism in operation but be sure you have the right ticket and understand how to get the discounted parking.