Belgium and Holland: Flemish and Dutch Masters, Bruges to Amsterdam

1. Day 1: Arrive and on to Bruges

   Brussels Airport to Bruges, then an evening walk through the old town

   • Drive about 1.5 h
   • Dinner
   • Stay in Bruges
   Day 1 details

   Fly into Brussels Airport (BRU) at Zaventem. A driver meets you in arrivals and takes you to Bruges, about 110 km and an hour and a quarter by road. Plan to land by about 2 pm so you are settled before the walk; if you arrive early, leave your bags at the hotel and head out. At about 5 pm your See Sight Tours guide meets the group for a short briefing on the week: which mornings start at a museum's opening and why, how the bags move, and where the art historians join us. Then we walk out while the day visitors leave: the Markt under the belfry, the Burg with its Gothic City Hall, and the Rozenhoedkaai, the bend of canal in so many photographs. Bruges grew rich on cloth and banking in the 15th century, when Jan van Eyck and Hans Memling worked here, and tomorrow is for them. We end at a welcome dinner of Flemish dishes.

   Included

   • Pick-up at Brussels Airport (BRU) and transfer to Bruges
   • Welcome briefing with your guide
   • Evening walk: the Markt, the Burg and the Rozenhoedkaai
   • Welcome dinner

   Free time: Free until the late-afternoon briefing

   Activity: The walk is about 3 km on cobbles and level.

2. Day 2: Bruges: Van Eyck and Memling

   The Groeninge Museum, St John's Hospital and the Church of Our Lady, then the Begijnhof

   • Breakfast
   • Stay in Bruges
   Day 2 details

   We are at the Groeninge Museum as it opens at 9:30, with an art historian, and go first to the Flemish primitives while the rooms are quiet: Jan van Eyck's Madonna with Canon van der Paele, painted in 1436, his portrait of his wife Margaret, and Gerard David's Judgement of Cambyses, painted for the city's aldermen. A few minutes' walk away, St John's Hospital is one of Europe's oldest surviving hospital buildings, and its chapel holds the paintings Hans Memling made for it, including the St Ursula Shrine and the altarpiece of the two St Johns. Next door, in the Church of Our Lady, is Michelangelo's marble Madonna and Child, the only one of his sculptures to leave Italy in his lifetime. We finish late morning in the Begijnhof, the walled court of white houses by the Minnewater. Lunch and the afternoon are yours.

   Included

   • Groeninge Museum at opening with an art historian
   • St John's Hospital and the Memling paintings
   • Church of Our Lady and Michelangelo's Madonna and Child
   • The Begijnhof and the Minnewater with your guide

   Optional experiences

   • Canal boat, about 30 minutes (price shown at booking)

   Easier option: Sit in the Begijnhof's garden while the group walks the Minnewater, or rest at the hotel after St John's.

   More active option: Climb the Belfry of Bruges in the free afternoon (366 steps), or cycle about 7 km along the canal to Damme.

   Free time: Lunch, afternoon and evening free

   Activity: About 5 km on foot and about three hours in galleries. The Bruges city museums close on Mondays; small-group departures start on a Tuesday or a Wednesday, so day 2 is never a Monday.

3. Day 3: Ghent and the Mystic Lamb

   Bruges to Ghent by train; St Bavo's Cathedral, the Museum of Fine Arts and the Graslei

   • By train
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Ghent
   Day 3 details

   Our vehicle takes the bags to the hotel in Ghent while we take the intercity train, about 25 minutes. We walk into St Bavo's Cathedral as the visitor centre opens at 10 am to see the Ghent Altarpiece, the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, finished by Hubert and Jan van Eyck in 1432 and restored panel by panel since 2012. One panel, the Just Judges, has been missing since it was stolen in 1934. Lunch is a sit-down meal of Ghent waterzooi, the city's creamy stew. In the afternoon we take the tram to the Museum of Fine Arts, the MSK, with an art historian, for Hieronymus Bosch's Christ Carrying the Cross and the conservation studio where the altarpiece's restoration has been carried out. The evening is free on the Graslei and the Korenlei, where guildhouses face each other across the river Leie, and which you have to yourselves once the day visitors leave.

   Included

   • Intercity train from Bruges to Ghent, with the bags in our vehicle
   • St Bavo's Cathedral and the Ghent Altarpiece, timed entry at opening
   • Sit-down lunch in Ghent
   • Museum of Fine Arts (MSK) with an art historian
   • Tram tickets for the day

   Easier option: Skip the MSK and rest at the hotel, or take a canal boat past the guildhouses.

   More active option: Walk out to the MSK through the Citadelpark instead of taking the tram, about 2 km each way.

   Free time: Late afternoon and evening free

   Activity: About 6 km on foot. The Ghent Altarpiece visitor centre opens at 10 am Monday to Saturday and at 1 pm on Sundays, and the MSK closes on Mondays; a Tuesday or Wednesday start puts day 3 on a Thursday or Friday.

   

4. Day 4: Ghent's Belfry, then Rubens in Antwerp

   The Belfry of Ghent, then by train to Antwerp; the Rubens House and the Snijders and Rockox House

   • By train
   • Breakfast
   • Stay in Antwerp
   Day 4 details

   We climb the Belfry of Ghent as it opens, before the queues: the 14th-century tower that kept the city's charters, with the carillon's playing drum, a great brass cylinder of pins that sounds the bells on the hour, and a view over the three towers of the old centre. A lift goes part of the way. Our vehicle takes the bags on to Antwerp while we take the train, about 50 minutes, arriving in the domed hall of Antwerp-Centraal. Lunch is your choice near the hotel. In the afternoon we visit the Rubens House, the house and studio where Peter Paul Rubens lived and worked from 1610, with its Baroque portico and garden; it has been under a long restoration, and we confirm which rooms are open for your dates. Then the Snijders and Rockox House, two merchants' houses with Flemish paintings hung as a collector would have hung them. The evening is free.

   Included

   • Belfry of Ghent, entry at opening
   • Intercity train from Ghent to Antwerp, with the bags in our vehicle
   • The Rubens House, or the parts open during its restoration
   • The Snijders and Rockox House
   • Antwerp tram tickets

   Easier option: Take the lift in the Belfry, or wait in a café on the Emile Braunplein while the others climb.

   More active option: Walk the St Anna pedestrian tunnel under the Scheldt to the left bank for the skyline view in the free evening.

   Free time: Lunch and evening free

   Activity: About 5 km on foot and the Belfry stairs. The Rubens House closes on Mondays; day 4 is a Friday or a Saturday on small-group departures.

   

5. Day 5: Antwerp: the KMSKA and the cathedral

   The KMSKA in the Zuid, then the Cathedral of Our Lady and the old town

   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Antwerp
   Day 5 details

   We are at the KMSKA, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, as it opens, with a museum guide. It reopened in 2022 after more than ten years of renovation, with new white galleries built inside the 19th-century building, and runs from Jean Fouquet's Madonna and Van Eyck's small Saint Barbara through Rubens and Jordaens to the largest collection of James Ensor's work. Lunch is a sit-down meal in the old town. In the afternoon we walk into the Cathedral of Our Lady, whose spire is the tallest in the Low Countries, for the two altarpieces Rubens painted for it, the Elevation of the Cross and the Descent from the Cross, and his Assumption over the high altar. We finish on the Grote Markt among the guildhouses. The rest of the afternoon is yours, perhaps for the Plantin-Moretus Museum, the printing house listed by UNESCO in 2005.

   Included

   • KMSKA at opening with a museum guide
   • Sit-down lunch in the old town
   • Cathedral of Our Lady and the Rubens altarpieces
   • The Grote Markt with your guide

   Optional experiences

   • Plantin-Moretus Museum (price shown at booking)

   Easier option: Take the tram between the KMSKA and the cathedral, and rest at the hotel after lunch.

   More active option: Walk out along the Scheldt quays to the MAS museum and climb its free spiral of escalators to the roof for the view over the port.

   Free time: Late afternoon and evening free

   Activity: About 5 km on foot and about three hours in galleries. Tourist visits to the cathedral are limited around Sunday services, so we visit it in the afternoon.

   

6. Day 6: Delft and the Mauritshuis, on to Amsterdam

   Antwerp to Delft by our vehicle, then The Hague and on to Amsterdam

   • Drive about 3 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Amsterdam
   Day 6 details

   Our own vehicle and driver collect the group and the bags after breakfast, and it is about an hour and a quarter north over the border to Delft. We walk the town where Johannes Vermeer lived and worked: the Markt between the Town Hall and the Nieuwe Kerk, where William of Orange is buried, and the Hooikade, the quay where Vermeer stood to paint the View of Delft across the water. Lunch is a sit-down meal in Delft. Then it is about 20 minutes to The Hague and the Mauritshuis, a 17th-century palace by the Hofvijver pond with an art historian: the View of Delft you stood in front of this morning, Girl with a Pearl Earring, Fabritius's Goldfinch and Rembrandt's Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp. In the late afternoon it is about an hour to Amsterdam, about two and three-quarter hours of driving in all, split into three legs. The evening is free.

   Included

   • Our own vehicle and driver from Antwerp to Delft, The Hague and Amsterdam, with the bags
   • Delft walk with your guide: the Markt, the Nieuwe Kerk and the Hooikade
   • Sit-down lunch in Delft
   • The Mauritshuis with an art historian

   Optional experiences

   • Royal Delft, the last 17th-century Delftware factory, instead of the Nieuwe Kerk (price shown at booking)

   Easier option: Sit at a café on the Delft Markt while the group walks to the Hooikade.

   More active option: Climb the Nieuwe Kerk's tower in Delft for the view to The Hague, where it is open.

   Free time: Evening free in Amsterdam

   Activity: About 4 km on foot. The Mauritshuis opens at 1 pm on Mondays, which is why it is always the afternoon visit. We confirm the Nieuwe Kerk's hours, as it does not open on every day.

7. Day 7: Amsterdam: the Rijksmuseum

   Museumplein, then the canal ring by boat

   • By boat
   • Breakfast
   • Stay in Amsterdam
   Day 7 details

   We are at the Rijksmuseum when it opens at 9 am, on a timed ticket, with an art historian, and go straight to the Gallery of Honour while it is still quiet: Rembrandt's Night Watch, Vermeer's Milkmaid and Little Street, Frans Hals's portraits and the Jewish Bride. The Night Watch has been under restoration in a glass chamber in the gallery, so you may see conservators at work; we tell you what is on view for your dates. After two and a half hours we leave the paintings for lunch at your choice of the cafés around Museumplein. In the early afternoon we board a canal boat for an hour on the canal ring, listed by UNESCO in 2010, past the merchants' houses with hoist beams under their gables, the kind of houses whose owners sat for these portraits. The rest of the afternoon and the evening are yours.

   Included

   • Rijksmuseum, timed entry at opening, with an art historian
   • One-hour canal boat
   • Public transport tickets for the day

   Optional experiences

   • The Rembrandt House, his home and studio from 1639 (price shown at booking)

   Easier option: Leave the Rijksmuseum after the Gallery of Honour and rest before the boat.

   More active option: Walk back from the boat through the Nine Streets and the Jordaan, about 3 km.

   Free time: Lunch, late afternoon and evening free

   Activity: About 5 km on foot and about two and a half hours in the museum.

8. Day 8: Haarlem and Frans Hals

   Amsterdam to Haarlem by train; the Frans Hals Museum and the Grote Kerk

   • By train
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Amsterdam
   Day 8 details

   A 15-minute train from Amsterdam Centraal takes us to Haarlem, Frans Hals's town, and we walk through the centre to the Frans Hals Museum as it opens, with a museum guide. It sits in a 17th-century almshouse for old men round a garden court, and holds the great group portraits of the civic guards and the regents of the almshouses, painted with the quick, loose brushwork that later painters from Manet to Van Gogh admired. Then the Grote Kerk of St Bavo on the Grote Markt, where Hals is buried, and its Müller organ of 1738, played by the ten-year-old Mozart in 1766. Lunch is a sit-down meal on the Grote Markt. We are back in Amsterdam by mid-afternoon with time to rest, and in the evening we meet for a farewell dinner near the canals.

   Included

   • Train from Amsterdam to Haarlem and back
   • Frans Hals Museum with a museum guide
   • The Grote Kerk of St Bavo and the Müller organ
   • Sit-down lunch in Haarlem
   • Farewell dinner in Amsterdam

   Easier option: Stay on the Grote Markt for coffee while the group visits the Grote Kerk.

   More active option: Stay on in Haarlem after lunch for the Teylers Museum, opened in 1784, and take the train back on your own before dinner.

   Free time: Late afternoon free before the farewell dinner

   Activity: About 5 km on foot. The Frans Hals Museum closes on Mondays; day 8 is a Tuesday or a Wednesday on small-group departures.

9. Day 9: Van Gogh Museum and home

   The Van Gogh Museum, then Amsterdam Schiphol Airport

   • Drive about 30 min
   • Breakfast
   Day 9 details

   On the last morning we are at the Van Gogh Museum for its 9 am slot, on timed tickets, with your guide. It holds the largest collection of Vincent van Gogh's work, kept by his family: the early dark paintings from Nuenen such as The Potato Eaters, the bright colours he found in Paris, the Sunflowers and The Bedroom from Arles, and the last wheatfields from Auvers, with his letters to his brother Theo. It is the right place to end, where this trip's line of Netherlandish painting reaches the modern world. We are back at the hotel by about 11:30 to collect the bags. Our driver then takes you to Amsterdam Schiphol Airport (AMS), about 20 km and 30 minutes by road, at a time set by your flight. Your guide checks that everyone's transfer is arranged before saying goodbye. Book a flight leaving after about 3 pm to join the museum visit.

   Included

   • Van Gogh Museum, timed entry at 9 am, with your guide
   • Drop-off at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport (AMS)

   Easier option: For a morning flight we go straight from the hotel to the airport.

   Activity: Book a flight leaving after about 3 pm to join the morning visit. If you want more time in Amsterdam, we can add hotel nights.

Wildlife and weather: The sea keeps the weather mild and changeable: summer highs of about 20 to 23 °C, spring and autumn around 12 to 17 °C, and rain possible on any day, which matters less on a trip spent largely indoors. April and May bring tulip season and the busiest weeks in Amsterdam and Bruges, which is why the big museums are booked at opening. June and September give long evenings and smaller crowds.

• Bruges2 nights
• Ghent1 night
• Antwerp2 nights
• Amsterdam3 nights