Help planning a trip
 

We land in Dusseldorf at 7 a.m. and depart London at 7 a.m. nine days later.

We are pretty much open to going anywhere by train or bus. We have eight full days to fill. My better half loves castles/palaces and historic things. I think we will want to spend at least three full days in London.

Any suggestions on what cities or areas to visit leading up to going to London? Right now I'm leaning toward visiting the cathedral in Cologne and then taking a train that same day to Luxembourg. Sped some time there before heading to Belgium but wondering if Amsterdam is worth a visit.

Hmm, if your inbound is 242, this sounds suspiciously like a trip I have booked for the end of next month...

I think you're on track with your plan for three full days in London -- plenty of time to do some sightseeing on a non-hurried pace.

As for the other five days, you could take a route north as you described, making your way up to Brussels, from which you can take the Eurostar to London. I would skip Amsterdam, as a day or two isn't going to be enough to do the city justice, and despite avoiding being bombed in the war isn't as "old" as other destinations.

One other thing I would suggest is going south to Bavaria. I am a fan of minimizing the number of different cities you overnight in so you don't waste a ton of travelling from point to point, so I like places that are good bases for easy daytrips as well as being notable in their own right. You could take the train south to Munich, spend four nights there with a couple of day trips to places like Neuschwanstein and Salzburg, and then catch a flight to London.

As an Amsterdammer, I think you would enjoy your time here. Considering your interests, I don't think you will benefit from time in Düsseldorf. The Dom in Cologne is well worth seeing, but much of the city was rebuilt after the war and there are rather few old buildings left. Amsterdam, OTOH, was not much damaged during the war and there are many old buildings left. Some go back to the 15th century.

In Belgium, there is only one city I would recommend: Gent. I know most tourists like Brugge, but it is usually filled with tourists while Gent is not. I think the old buildings there are also more impressive than Brugge. Luxembourg (I assume you mean the city) is quite nice, but it is also quite small and a bit out of the way.

I agree with Linglingfool that Bavaria is well worth visiting. If you like old cities, the most impressive (in my experience are): Regensburg, Passau and Rothenburg ob der Taube. All are easily reachable by train. Look at the bahn.de website and look for the Bayern Ticket. This will give you and your wife a sort of train pass at a very good price.

There are castles all over Europe. We even have one just outside Amsterdam (http://www.muiderslot.nl/) and a medieval fortress (http://www.vestingmuseum.nl/) which is in a preserved village (http://www.pi4rcg.nl/wp-content/uplo...en-Vesting.jpg).

If you still want to see castles in Germany, there is a nice list here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_castles_in_Germany

From there, you can see (at the bottom of the page), castles in other countries.

If you need any further information about transport, let me know and I will try to help.

Amsterdam is great - plenty of historic buildings, very friendly and the canals make it a bit more unusual. Most of the people seem to speak English too. I'd rather stop off there for a couple of days than in Brussels. Gent is also nice. Bavaria is a good idea but it's a long way out of your way if you were planning on visiting the UK, Netherlands and Belgium.

Plenty of castles in the UK too of course, Warwick, Bodiam and Caerphilly spring to mind immediately and Norwich might make a nice day trip from London (castle, cathedral, medieval streets, lots of 18th/19th century architecture).

I haven't been to Dusseldorf, so I might be misjudging it, but my feeling is that you should go straight from the airport to Cologne and overnight there before moving on the next morning. I don't think there's enough there to keep you occupied much longer but there's plenty of decent places to eat and it's well located for going elsewhere. Or you could leave your luggage at the station for the day and take an overnight train out - only really to be recommended if you think you'll sleep ok on the plane, two low sleep nights in succession won't do you much good and most people don't sleep brilliantly on trains.

Agree with the others about DUS -- get out of town and see the Dom in Köln, grab a quick lunch and head to your next destination.

And nothing against Amsterdam, just not the first place that pops into my mind for castles. If you decide to go north instead of south, I think three nights in Amsterdam and two in Gent would be appropriate. That gives you the option of spending part of a day in Bruges if you so desire.

We've actually made a slight change to our plans. We are now flying into London and will spend three full days to start there. Then I'm thinking we will take the train to Belgium, stay there two days, then head to Luxembourg for two days and then to Heidelberg, Germany for a day. We will fly home from Frankfurt. Any thoughts on this plan?

Yes, two days in Luxembourg? Why? Heidelberg is OK, but, other than the ruins of an old castle, I don't think there is much to see or do.

thoughts on your new plan
 

Living in the area near Heidelberg and having made it our mission to travel a bit around here I would agree with some of the other comments. If castles are a priority, you could take a river cruise on the Rhine river and you can see/ explore castles
( http://www.bingen-ruedesheimer.com/r...ise/index.html is an example )
You can also take a train to/from there http://www.bahn.com/i/view/DEU/en/index.shtml

Arriving into London instead is definitely a good idea and should help with jet lag/tiredness. I don't think Luxembourg is worth two days though, is there any particular reason why you are going there?

We actually mostly want to visit Vianden, Luxembourg. Does anyone have any suggestions on getting there from Brussels? It seems to be the best bet is to go to Luxembourg City and then take the train/bus to Vianden.

Can I assume you want to go there because of the castle? And two days? There are many more castles you could visit (see my earlier post with the Wikipedia link to castles) that would be far more convenient and offer more than Luxembourg.