Best way to travel from Paris >> Bruges >> Rotterdam

Hello,

My wife, son and I have won a 2 day break in Paris going by Eurstar from London on 10 August. We have decided that we would like to do a bit of city hopping and extend the holiday.

Our plan is to stay in Paris for the 2 nights then instead of returning to london on the Eurostar travel to Bruges in which we would spend 3 nights, then travel to Rotterdam and spend 2 nights with family before travelling to Amsterdam where we will spend 2-3 nights before getting a flight back to london. Or travelling back to Paris and getting the eurostar.

My problem is this is the first time I have tried to plan this and would like some advise on the best methods of travelling to these destination (and cheapest as we are on a budget)

Also we have stayed in Bruges last year and stayed in the Novetel Central which was lovely but wondered if anyone had any recommendation for hotels in Bruges and Amsterdam?

You advice will be gratefully received!

Regards

Jon

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Well, the cheapest way would be to walk but that would take rather a long time.

The most cost-effective way would be by train. Information on trains in and out of France can be obtained from www.voyages-sncf.com but I don%26#39;t know about travel in Belgium. I would suggest you post in the Belgium forum.

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The German railways website is generally more user-friendly for European train times reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en… but doesn%26#39;t give costs for journeys outside Germany.

The other site you could check is http://www.raileurope.co.uk/ - I just checked a sample price for the Paris-Brussels journey about a month ahead, and the cheapest price on SNCF was 25€, while the same tickets were £27 on raileurope (that%26#39;s about £5 per ticket for currency exchange costs, plus convenience). The cheapest tickets on express trains need to be booked well ahead (like budget airlines), but they are not released until 3/4 months ahead, so you%26#39;d have to be prepared. You can buy tickets for local trains at the time of travel, so it would be worth checking on the other forums about the best deals for your routes on Belgian and Dutch railways.

There is also lots of excellent info about European rail travel on http://www.seat61.com/

Absolute cheapest will probably be Eurolines coach http://www.eurolines.co.uk/

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The Thalys train goes from Paris to Rotterdam via Bruges

http://www.thalys.com/be/en/

You can easily get a train from Rotterdam to Amsterdam.

You%26#39;ll need to check out the prices yourself - but if you book now you should get some good deals.

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