<p>You can do a lot in the Netherlands just a few days. Definitely go to Amsterdam and Maastricht, if you have time also go to Leiden and Delft. If you want to stay in Germany then Aachen is also well worth a visit.</p>
<p>By train from Düsseldorf you can be in Paris in just three and half hours, but if I were you I’d probably grab a cheap flight to Prague or Rome.</p>
<p>RE Cologne… it is the most overrated city in Germany, possibly Europe. The cathedral is nice but that’s all the city has to offer.</p>
<p>Nowadays you can travel by bus in Europe for very little money. There are many lines going to Berlin from most German and European cities.
I would recommend Berlin. There is so much to see, whether you are interested in history or art (Museumsinsel).</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, when are you planning to go? German towns have wonderful outdoor Christmas marts. I highly recommend the one in Rothenburg, which should be easy to get to by train from Hamburg.</p>
<p>It won’t be til Feb or March next year. I’m not afraid of touring when it’s cold out, though. I did Moscow in Jan when my water bottle froze while I was walking around :-)</p>
<p>Maybe a beautiful drive down to the Black Forest with an overnight along the way and then spending another night wonderful Strasbourg France before taking the high speed train to one of the Paris airports. So many options…</p>
<p>Amsterdam is nice enough for a city but Germany has a lot to see as well. I’d stick with Germany on this trip.</p>
<p>From Dusseldorf you could just head down the Rhine seeing castles, cathedrals (Cologne has a very nice one), the cities and towns along the way (including Koblenz, Rudesheim), the scenery, etc. </p>
<p>You could head from Dusseldorf to around Wiesbaden and Frankfurt. I’ve only driven it but there are trains that go along the Rhine so it seems you could do that. You might even be able to take watercraft to your destinations (I haven’t ever checked into that).</p>
<p>You could even take a train back to your arrival airport if you want to keep it simple and fly in/out of the same point. </p>
<p>If that’s not enough to fill your time, there are many other destinations in Germany you could head to.</p>
<p>I’d much rather check out the areas along the Rhine than hang out in some city, including Amsterdam, for days, but that’s just me.</p>
<p>Agree to try to get in at least one or two smaller cities or towns with historical charms. Eat and drink with the locals. I lived in Munich and am partial to Bavaria, but will you have the time? </p>
<p>Agree about Aachen- read up on it. Maybe Heidelberg.</p>
<p>Haha – I missed that part and it brings the Belgium plus Holland sidetrip in a better focus. Given the distances involved, one could easily hit a number of great spots. From Dusseldorf, one could drive (or take the train) and stop in Koln (the Cathedral is easy to reach) and Aachen, jump to Brussels for one day and to Amsterdam in preparation of the return flight. An alternative would be to fly to Amsterdam, spend a couple of days, and then drive (or take the train) to Neuss, and finish in Brussels. All those trips are around two hours by train or car. </p>
<p>I believe that the connections with Chicago will be pretty similar in Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris, or Brussels. </p>
<p>PS I am biased when it gets to Brussels because in trip where the bookends are Germany and Holland, it would be nice to have really great food in the middle. The other countries are so-so in this area as they slowly emerge from their Calvinist and Lutheran handicaps. I really like Amsterdam but it ain’t Shangri-La for epicurians! :)</p>
<p>If you travel to Germany in February or March you should be aware of Carnival/Fasching going on between February 27 and March 4. Check the events online in all the cities you want to travel to. Of course, it is a local custom in many parts. But many people do not like to indulge or even watch these type of events, especially as they are usually connected with heavy drinking. Like many people living in Europe I always stay away or travel to Protestant areas, where not much is going on. Just like the Oktoberfest, you love it or you find it disgusting.</p>
<p>If I were going to Germany, I would be inclined to stay in Germany. That being said…we loved Brussels in the winter. We spent three days in Belgium, one day in Bruge (not a very long train ride at all) and but stayed in Brussels. The food is really wonderful. I’ll give you the names of all the chocolate places we went to! In addition, I had the best Belgian waffle ever (twice actually) at a little corner breakfast place.</p>
<p>Bruge is really a neat walk around city. We loved the very interesting architecture…we understood it was one of the few cities that was not bombed during the wars. Beautiful old buildings and a very pretty central square.</p>
<p>We went to Carnival in Koeln one year, and it was pretty tame. Cute parade, but nothing like New Orleans Mardis Gras. I can’t remember anything happening in Munich (there were Fasching Balls, but we were never invited to one) - the main thing we noticed was the availability of cream filled donuts which for some reason are associated with the holiday. Munich has great food. Order fish, order salad - they make great composed salads. It also has two Michelin two-star restaurants.</p>
<p>Amsterdam is great. Van Gogh and Rembrandt in the same city, are you kidding me?</p>
<p>But I’m inclined to agree with those who say once you’re in Germany, you should see something of Germany. For my money, Berlin and Munich are the must-see cities in Germany. Both are somewhat lengthy train rides from Dusseldorf, Berlin a bit over 4 hours by the fastest train, Munich closer to 6. And I’m not sure a fast ICE train is necessarily cheaper than flying; intra-European flights can sometimes be very reasonable. They’re very different cities, Munich a bit more buttoned-down, even stodgy in its Bavarian traditions but nonetheless an economic and cultural powerhouse. Berlin is still in the process of rebuilding its primacy among German cities and European capitals but in the meantime is a magnet for the young, hip, and trendy, Europe’s “hipster hauptstadt” as the NY Times recently put it, yet it’s also drenched in history, from the relatively recent remnants of the Wall to earlier monuments to Prussia’s and then Germany’s imperial ambitions.</p>
<p>If you decide on one of these, I can recommend some specifics.</p>
<p>Dusseldorf itself has some things worth seeing, including several very good art museums and a well-preserved historic district, the Altstadt. The Nordrhein-Westfalen Museum owns an impressive collection of 100 works by Paul Klee and is currently exhibiting all of them; Klee taught in Dusseldorf until pressure from the Nazis forced him to emigrate. People also talk about shopping on the upscale Konigsallee (or “Ko”), but I’m not much of a shopper so that sort of thing doesn’t much appeal to me. Just outside Dusseldorf there’s a Neaderthal Museum at Mettman, site of the original 1856 discovery of Neanderthal remains; sounds kind of cool, but I’ve never been. But if I had three days free in Europe, I wouldn’t spend them in Dusseldorf.</p>
<p>Agree w bclintok that Munich & Berlin are superb. But if u only have 3 days, I would minimize time sitting on a train and maximize enjoying time on the ground. A 6 hr train ride pretty much eats up an entire day. A’dam is much closer to Dusseldorf, ~3 hrs by train.</p>
<p>Some of this comes down to what you’re interested in. Some people would rather spend their time going to art museums and sipping coffee at a cafe and shopping in the big cities (which come with congestion, cars, diesel fumes), and others would rather see some castles, cathedrals (which the big cities may have but so do some smaller cities), smaller towns (especially some with a medieval section), and some natural landscape. Although I don’t discount visiting the big cities, which usually have some historical points of interest, I prefer the latter which is why I recommended it and Dusseldorf is already on the Rhine - you just need to take your time heading south along it to see quite a bit. To me, seeing the area along the Rhine feels more like ‘Germany’ and different than being in just some of the big cities.</p>
<p>Another area not terribly far is along the Mosel river which is a beautiful area with lots of vineyards as well as some castles and small towns if you’re interested in that type of thing.</p>
<p>It’s all good though - just select based on your preference (castles, cities, wineries, river, art galleries, museums) and if you could state your preference here people might be able to provide even more suggestions.</p>
<p>Mosel drive is spectacular in Oct and there’s Trier at the end of it, but it’s bleak in Feb. In Feb you will freeze your assets off the further inland you go in Europe.</p>
I’ve been to the areas (Rhine, etc.) in both summer and winter and I agree that it can be spectacular in summer and bleak/cold in winter but even in the winter I still managed to enjoy it - it was something different than what I’m used to here - plus, I like castles and the like and if nothing else, they’re much less crowded in the bleak weather. OTOH most of Europe is bleak in the winter so that just goes with the territory but you’re right that the severity varies with the location. Some of the nicer areas are really in the mountains of Switzerland, etc. where at least one can ski and enjoy the snow.</p>
<p>I think the Rhine and the Mosel are lovely. Never taken a boat trip on either, though I’d like to do so someday, but I have traveled both by train. Notwithstanding the charm, those aren’t trips I’d make in winter. Fall is probably the best time, while the weather is still nice but the hordes of tourists are gone, and the grape crop is coming in.</p>
<p>Winter does tend to be gloomy in most of Europe–gray, drizzly, cold, damp. My tendency would be to fend that off the way the Europeans do, with art, music, good food, a snifter of good brandy, and some nice chocolate. Drives the darkness away.</p>
<p>I guess maybe I’d see if there’s any chance of scoring a ticket to the Berlin Philharmonic, and working from there.</p>
<p>Well, I have done the Rhine boat ride, and it was chilly and damp in … July. It probably would be a miserable --and slow-- boat ride in the winter. This was easily the most boring and least interesting part of our Germany trip. </p>
<p>There are plenty of more pleasant things to within 2-3 hours from Neuss. With choices such as Brussels or Amsterdam. But to each his own.</p>