Hey everyone, So my Amsterdam trip has finally materialized and I am very excited. I am going in March of '08 and I can't seem to decide if I want to hop on Ryan air and spend a few days in Barcelona - also a city that I have always wanted to visit. I think I would be down with this, without reservations, if my main destination would have been anywhere other than Amsterdam. I feel that Barcelona would be great, but I dont want to feel as though I wasted some days not indulging in distinctly Amsterdam attractions, esp considering how expensive it is to get across the pond these days and the difficulty in getting days off.

What do you think? Am I going to miss Amsterdam in Barcelona? Do less, see more?

I think the answer is in your comment "Barcelona is a place I have always wanted to see"...

If it's somewhere that you have always wanted to see then go for it!!

But you need at least 2 days over in Barcelona to see the main sights properly...

You'll have a great time!!

Amsterdam itself is not that big so you can probably see a good amount of it within 5 days unless you want to venture outside of the city and see the surrounding areas.

thanks guys, that helps

I agree with both of them. As Pete says, Amsterdam is a fairly compact city. I would say that in three full days and four nights you can experience Amsterdam properly. You could take a train to Bruges, but even that place has a somewhat similar vibe.

Barcelona is much larger and of course the weather there will be nicer in March. As fond as I am of Amsterdam, I would definitely split this trip up, probably in half.

Yes. Unless you´wantto do a thorough job of amsterdam and the cites and areas around it( Haarlem comes to mind) or you want to just hang out in ´dam smoking spliffs in a relaxed manner, you can see most of the main sights of amsterdam in 5 days.

One half day for the Van Gogh museum, of course.

You need at least 3 days for Barcelona. FigureÑ
One day for puttering around.
One day for the Familia Sagrada, Parke guell and maybe the apartment house guell.

One day for the Dali museum in Figueras, one of the highlignts of my trip to Barcelona.

You can and should do La Rambla at night.

quote:

Originally posted by Violet156:
Hey everyone, So my Amsterdam trip has finally materialized and I am very excited. I am going in March of '08 and I can't seem to decide if I want to hop on Ryan air and spend a few days in Barcelona

Well, I can see one fatal flaw in your plan: RyanAir doesn't fly out of Amsterdam. (Easyjet does, but it doesn't offer direct flights from AMS to Barcelona.) You'd have to take a rather expensive train ride down to Eindhoven to fly to Barcelona using RyanAir, and the cost of the train ride would inflate the price of your brief jaunt to Barcelona rather quickly.

Some relatively cheap flights to Barcelona may in fact be available from other airlines. You'll need to search around a bit.

That said, I agree with Rawjer. The Amsterdam/Barcelona split is a nice idea. Very different cities offering pleasant juxtaposition with one another.

Eindhoven is an adventure worthy of the intrepid. Not only does it cost 19 euros or more each way, you have to get TO and FROM the train statin to the airport. Its a two hour ride TO eindhoven. Whats worse, the cheapest flights from Eindhoven often leave so early, that you'd have to stay in the city overnight to be sure and catch it on the way back.

Thats the situation I found myself in, instead of buying the slightly more expensive flight comeing into schipol.

The good news is that Sky Europe flies out of Schipol. Does that go there, or other discount airlines?

I would also recommend going for it.

No worries about airlines--there are plenty of cheapies on that route: the Spanish Vueling and Clickair leave Shirpol and arrive in Barcelona, not in some place 100 km away like Ryanair does. You will maybe need to fly one down and the other back for the cheapest price. You shouldn't really have to pay more than 80 EUR/$120 return including tax in any case with these.

The Dutch Transavia flies direct as well but it tends to be a bit more pricey. Also the Air Berlin offers full service (food, drinks, newspapers...) connecting flights via Mallorca for a reasonable price. Spain's National Airline, Iberia, also has some fares around $160 return.

By the way, you mention that flights over were expensive in March? I've been looking from the east coast (DC or NYC) to Holland and Germany myself recently and it was never more much than $500 after taxes on cheaptickets.com...

If you're planning on sight seeing and stuff i think you'll have seen enough of Amsterdam after about 5 days, If you want to chill out and pass the time in a haze you could do ten days,it's up to you i'd recommend Barcelona too though.

It'll cost you precisely 16,80 to get to Eindhoven, trains leave at least every half hour and the bus from the station to the airport is about about 3 to 4 euro's. This will nearly always work out alot cheaper then flying from Schiphol because of the steep airport taxes.

What ever you do make sure to enjoy yourself!

Actually going Eindhoven to Girona will be a pain and it probably wont save you money.
When you go this route you will pay 20 Euros on the Dutch end each way and 10 Euros on the Spanish end each way. That is 60 Euros alone in airport transfers, plus you will still be paying at least 30 Euros for the return flight on Ryanair (given that Americans are required to pay at least 3 Euros to check-in at the airport, etc.), so that is going to add up to about at least 90 Euros.

Using one of the other airlines I mentioned from AMS to BCN you will only need to pay around 10 Euros for all the transfers to the cities and back total plus 80 Euros total for the return flight and taxes. That means that the price should be about the same and you do save several hours on each end. Plus Clickair and Vueling are both a bit nicer than ol' Ryan.

Clickair also offers to take your checked luggage free of charge, so that could translate into savings.

quote:

Originally posted by skipp1:
It'll cost you precisely 16,80 to get to Eindhoven

Hmmm...rail prices must have gone down in the last year, because even with my voordeel-urenkaart discount card I never paid so little for a ticket to Eindhoven. (And I was always traveling there from either Utrecht, Hilversum, or Amsterdam.) In fact, even when traveling after 9AM, I always paid a rather large amount.

Are you using a student discount card of some kind, Skipp?

quote:

Actually going Eindhoven to Girona will be a pain and it probably wont save you money.

Absolutely. While I've never flown Clickair, if you can get a cheap flight out of Amsterdam rather than Eindhoven then listen to Brambles and do so.

16,80 is the full price, one way that is (www.ns.nl). To tell you the truth I'm used to ryanair always being the cheapest option, but looking at it again, considering the extra costs it does look like you'd be better of flying from Schiphol. Ryanair works out at around 60 euro's in march, but with all the extra costs and time wasting you'd be better off with Clickair (about 100) or Vueling (around 120) from schiphol.
I admit! the local was wrong!

quote:

By the way, you mention that flights over were expensive in March? I've been looking from the east coast (DC or NYC) to Holland and Germany myself recently and it was never more much than $500 after taxes on cheaptickets.com...

I just checked out that website, it is curious that I used to like cheaptickets but I stopped using it. I see that the prices are about $600 for my dates including taxes, that is definitely much better than the $700-800 range on other websites. I actually ended up paying $600 for the tix that a got because I had a previous US airways ticket that I had to exchange in, catch being that I can only re-book with US Airways, anyway, the price of the tix the got was $713 or so, and I was able to get $113 knocked off that. But thanks for that, I will def check out cheaptickets next time, I dont know why I stopped using it! lol

Also if I was going to take Ryan air, I would be getting on the train from amsterdam to brussels and then taking the flight from there to barcelona. However, I think I might want something direct so as to cut back on time.