This is our itinerary for the trip:
Fri 16th Oct: Depart from Singapore to Amsterdam on Malaysian Airlines, with a 1-hour stopover in Kuala Lumpur.
Sat 17th Oct: Arrival in Schiphol, Amsterdam. We'll immediately take an InterCity train to Antwerp. We'll check in to the Het Singelhuis bed and breakfast and spend the day exploring the city.
Sun 18th Oct: We'll take a train to Ypres, which is 2 hours away. There we'll do a guided tour of major WWI battlefields and cemetaries. I happened to borrow a couple of books from the library recently about WWI, and that rekindled my interest in Wilfred Owen's poems and the Great War in general. I figured it would be more interesting and meaningful for me and Lianyi to take the 2-hour trip to Ypres and do this tour than spend another day in Antwerp doing what the Lonely Planet recommends -- a "flit" through expensive boutiques started by the six fashion designers who made Antwerp a fashion capital.
Mon 19th Oct: We'll take a train to Ghent, where we'll be basing ourselves for three days. Today, we'll explore Ghent itself.
Tue and Wed 20th+21st Oct: For these two days, we'll take day trips out to Bruges, the #1 tourist destination in Belgium. I hope to visit all the sites shown in the film In Bruges :)
Thu 22nd Oct: We'll take a train to Brussels and check into Downtown BXL, which better be as good as the reviews say. We'll spend the day exploring Brussels.
Fri 23rd Oct: Explore Brussels some more.
Sat 24th Oct: We'll cross the border into Holland, stopping at Maastricht, where we'll stay a night and spend the day exploring some Roman tunnels and fortresses.
Sun 25th Oct: Finally, we'll take a train to Amsterdam, where we'll be based for the rest of the trip. From Sunday to Tuesday, we'll explore Amsterdam itself - the Van Goghs, the Rembrandts, the canals, and of course, the coffee shops. Oh yeah, also the Ajax Stadium because Lianyi insists. Grrr.
Wed 28th Oct: We'll take a day trip to Apeldoorn, site of the Hoge Veluwe National Park, within which lies the Kroller-Muller Open Air Museum. If it's anything like the Hakone Open Air Museum, it should be amazing.
Thu 29th Oct: Another day trip, this time to Haarlem, which is just 20 minutes away from Amsterdam. And if we have time afterwards, we'll make our way to Zaanse Schans, a fake town with reconstructed windmills and medieval buildings. Cheesy tourist trap, but what's a trip to Holland without a visit to a windmill right?
Fri 30th Oct: Yet another day trip. We'll go to The Hague to see how the upper class live, and if we have time afterwards, to Delft, which is supposed to be small and charming.
Sat 31st Oct: We depart from Amsterdam back to Singapore
