RPMatt

Last month, my wife and I had the chance to visit Europe for my first time since 2021. While the weather was a bit colder than we were used to, the crowds were very manageable, the cherry blossoms were blossoming, and the weather was not too hot for walking. For this trip, we booked an open-jaw flight and used trains (mostly Eurostar) to get everywhere while we were there. Our longest train ride was only 3 hours, and we had very few days where we spent the majority moving which was great because it allowed us to more fully experience the places we were in.

Our first stop was Paris. We flew in here on a direct flight with AirFrance and our friend picked us up at the airport. We took the RER B train into the city from Charles De Gaulle and went straight to lunch with our two friends there. After lunch, we were quite dead so we didn’t do much, but we were able to walk down to the Champs-Élysées and see the Arc de Triomphe (which was under scaffolding the last time we went). After this we headed back to our friend’s place to take a nap for a couple hours. When we woke up, walked to Place de la Nation and Place de la Bastille. These two areas are essentially roundabouts with big memorials in the middle. The first one was known for having the most active guillotines during the French Revolution, while the latter is where the Bastille prison stood until the French Revolution when it was stormed and subsequently destroyed. After this, we stopped into a brasserie for dinner. We were able to try Camembert rôti, or roasted camembert. It’s basically a how it sounds, roasted camembert that you mix with bread and honey that makes for a wonderful appetizer. It was my first time trying and after this I ordered it a few more times on the trip.

The next day, we woke up and went to brunch in Le Marais, a wonderful neighborhood in the 4th arrondissement. This is one of my favorite neighborhoods in Paris because it is bustling with all sorts of stores and restaurants and filled with winding side streets. After brunch, we stopped by the Marché des Enfants Rouges, or market of red children, a little covered market full of food stalls and fresh meat, cheese and produce. This was something that was super cool that I would have definitely gone to a lot if I was staying closer to it. It was really hard to see from the street and unless you knew about it for some reason I don’t think you would stumble into it by chance. After that, we went to the Musée de l’Orangerie. It is a small museum by Parisian standards, found in the Jardin des Tuileries. However, it is a wonderful museum of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings, with one of the most popular being Monet’s Water Lillies. At the end of the day, we went to the house of my friend’s mother and had a lovely French meal. As an American, it was awesome to me to enjoy this meal that was so structured and thought out and lasted 4 hours, a time where we just enjoyed each other’s company while we ate.

We also went to Versailles and Les Bois de Vincennes, a nice park in the southeast of Paris. Our last day there was Monday so a lot of popular museums were closed and we spent a lot of the day just strolling along the Seine, in search of a sparkling water fountain that was rendered inaccessible due to a police blockade (more on that in a later post).

After a few days in Paris, we bid our friends goodbye, and headed north to London. The train was quick and had us there early in the afternoon, so we still had time to explore the city a bit before we went to sleep. My wife lived here for 3 months in the summer of 2021, so we started in the area she lived, which was close to SoHo and the British Museum. We went to dinner at a Ramen shop called Kanada-ya, which was a very cute shop with great tonkotsu. Afterwards, we walked through SoHo and Chinatown, down to Trafalgar Square and Westminster to see Big Ben (for the first time in awhile without scaffolding). The next day, we woke up and grabbed a quick breakfast before heading to St. James Park on a scenic route to Buckingham Palace. On this particular morning, the sun was out, so it was lovely to see all the cherry blossoms and ducks swimming about and other people enjoying their day. We were lucky enough to also see the Royal Marching Band perform near Buckingham Palace, although we’re still not sure why. After that, we went to lunch in Soho and dropped some film off at a developer to be processed, then went to St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Tate Modern, the Millennium Bridge, and the London Tower, which left us with this whirlwind route. Thankfully, the transport in London (bus, train, or boat!) made it super easy.

Afterwards, we headed to Bruges, Belgium. Once again, we used Eurostar. This time it was a train to Brussels on EuroStar then an IC to Bruges and a roughly 10 minute walk from the station to our hotel. Bruges was a beautiful little town that really did look straight out of a fairy tale. All the streets in the center were cobblestone and the houses looked straight out of the 12th century. While there were lots of touristy things to do, we didn’t do many of them and mostly just spent the day taking in the sights and eating Belgian waffles and fries. It was a nice slow stop in between London and Amsterdam.

For our trip to Amsterdam, we took a Belgian IC train to Antwerp, which was one of the most beautiful train stations I’ve ever been in, and a Thalys train from there to Amsterdam. During our stop, we snagged our last chance to get a Belgian waffle in Belgium. Both trains made good time, although we had a small delay on our Thalys train due to a technical problem with the train. Still, we arrived only 10 minutes later than planned. Once in Amsterdam, we took a tip from a friend to try out Dutch fries. After this, we walked through the middle of the city just to see the major sites and acquaint ourselves with the city. It is a very beautiful city, though a bit more congested than I imagined and the volume and speed of bicycles kept me on edge every time I crossed the street. We stayed on a houseboat in a marina that was about 10 minutes from the center by bus. This was a super cool experience that showed us a much quieter side to the city. We also had our share of stroopwafels, heineken, and another ramen shop that was one of my favorites I had been to. This shop was called Ramen Kingdom. We got there right when it opened at 4:00 PM and still had to wait in line for about 20 minutes due to it’s popularity. They were very quick and efficient about getting us in though, and it was totally worth the wait. During our stay in Amsterdam, we also took a day trip the Keukenhof tulip gardens. Sadly, the main fields weren’t blooming yet so it was a bit of a disappointment, but the rest of the gardens were very nice and had plenty to do so it wasn’t a total loss.

All in all, it was a great trip. In Paris, we were able to see new things that we missed last time because we were so busy just trying to see the big sites. In London, however, this was a trip that was mostly about seeing the big stuff, so the next time I am there hopefully I will be able to soak more in and really dive deeper into it, and the same goes for Amsterdam. I made a rookie mistake not buying tickets to a lot of the big stuff we wanted to do in Amsterdam, and the weather was quite poor for walking around so I feel like I made the most of the situation but certainly missed a lot.

If you’ve made it this far, I really appreciate you taking the time to read my post! This was just a 30,000 foot summary of our trip and what we did. If you follow along and subscribe to my blog, I will be posting much more detailed reports and guides of the places we went and the things we did!

Thanks for reading!

Related Posts:

How to plan a trip to the Palace of Versailles from Paris (without a tour guide)

Refreshing yourself with the public water fountains in Paris

A whirlwind day exploring Central London by bus, train, boat & foot

Bruges from London, a weekend trip or a pit-stop before Amsterdam

Why you should plan a stop at Antwerp’s Central train station if you’re traveling through Belgium

How to visit Keukenhof from Amsterdam to see the Dutch Tulips

The Magic of Amsterdam: A City of Canals, Coffee Shops, and Culture