Quote Originally Posted by indysteel View Post
Oh, he'd most definitely learn to drive a stick before we went to Europe. That said, the idea of trying to navigate in a foreign country doesn't appeal to me terribly. One of my friends who had a bad experience with renting a car in France had a GPS for the car, and she said it come in VERY handy.

Papaver, Gent is one of the places we wanted to drive to. Beyond being more centrally located than Bruges, why do you prefer it? A few years back, Budget Travel magazine did an article on Gent and I remember thinking "I must go there," but I can't remember much from it. I remember that it was very cycling-centric. I like the idea of renting bikes for the day and tooling around.

Thanks for all the help. If you have any suggestions regarding where to eat, what to see, etc., I'd certainly welcome them.
Bruges is beautiful, no doubt about it. But it's also dead in the evenings. Ghent is just as beautiful, it's less touristical and very vibrant during the night. It's a great balance between culture, cuisine, shopping and just fun. I know a great B&B in Gent. What to visit? Just walk around and be amazed. There are so many medieval buildings, little streets (like Patershol). And the centre of the city (that's almost 65%) is entirely car free. And you can cycle to Sint-Martens-Latem (15 kms or so). That is a very very pittoresk place. A lot of artsist lived there at the beginning of the 20th century.

On Sunday mornings there are small markets everywhere in Gent (the flower market with live music, a champagne & oyster stand > extremely popular and very cosy). Bookmarkets, antiques... Great stuff.

Everything in Belgium is very closeby. So if you only visit cities, it's a bit silly to rent a car. There is a slight difference between drivers in the States and Europe (ahum). They are a lot more agressive.

If you take the Thalys (high speed train) from Paris to Brussels, it only takes 1h20 mins (yes only 80 minutes). And you have no traffic jams whatsoever. I never go to paris with my car because it's so much easier. And i hardly ever visit a city by car either. The train is so much easier.

To visit the cities, count a day per city. And then you can decide which city you can go back to (you'll definately want that). Between Bruges and Gent it's only 45 kms or so. More or less the same between Gent and Brussels and Gent and Antwerpen.

This is a very handy site to plan your trip by train.
http://www.b-rail.be/main/E/

If you would do this by car you'll have lots of traffic jams, and you'll loose lots of time searching parkingspace. I personally would never do it.

You can fly back to the states from Brussels airport (it has its own trainstation), or you can take the Thalys back to paris (which will be cheaper, i think).

This is the site for the high speed train. http://www.thalys.com/

The earlier you order your trainticket, the cheaper it'll be.