Originally Posted by
joshwex90
Sounds good, and I never thought about adding Brussels to my itinerary. What else is interesting about it, because I definitely don't hear about it a lot.
Not a lot of people consider Brussels, which I find a shame (and no, I am not Belgian).
Brussels is the best city in the world to experience quality beer. So visiting some pubs or even a brewery and trying out different kinds of beer like the Lambic, which unlike conventional ales and lagers is instead produced by spontaneous fermentation: it is exposed to the wild yeasts and bacteria that are said to be native to the Senne valley, in which Brussels lies. (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambic).
The city itself is beautiful. A nice mix of old and new. The old symbolized with the Grand Place, which I believe is a world heritage site.
Oh and don't forget to get some mussels - Brussels is famous for that and other sea food and you can get mussels for cheap.
Originally Posted by
joshwex90
That's true that SN is *A, and there's also BD in London, but they don't fly anywhere! I could see potentially adding Brussels to the list, but not instead of Amsterdam; perhaps in addition. So would you suggest not flying out all in or out of AMS, but fly to BRU, visit Amsterdam, and then train it back to BRU?
That's what I would suggest, if you can fit it into your schedule. The train is 2½h each way and takes you from city center to city center for some 30 € each way. More info here:
http://www.amsterdam.info/travel/brussels/
Originally Posted by
joshwex90
And still, how would I route it, because I really want to do London as well. The best I can think of is TLV-LON (perhaps via ZRH on LX, which could actually get me to LCY instead of LHR) and then LHR-BRU on SN, train r/t to Amsterdam, SN again BRU-BCN, and then JK on the return, BCN-TLV. Is there better or more obvious routing?
Ideally, I wanted to start in Barcelona, then London, then Amsterdam, but obviously, when it comes to elite status and ff miles, you can't have everything in life
Yes the routing is the challenging. I can't really make that call for you and I haven't looked up the time schedules of the various flights.
I suggest you look up time schedules first and then plan the route accordingly.
If you can end up in LCY rather than LHR you have just saved yourself 1-1½ hours, since LHR is far out of city and immigration lines are horrible (The UK is not part of Schengen, which allows you to travel without immigration).
If you want to start in BCN then Spanair flies direct from TLV to BCN and from there you can go to BRU with Spanair as well. Spanair is decent, but nothing spectacular (no European airlines really are). They will have cava in the lounges though
From BRU you can then cover AMS by train and jump to London (unfortunately not to LCY though).
Let us know what route that you come up with