It’s not easy these days to go somewhere beyond your country, if you are living in a country whose money is powerless against many others, as every penny/cent you spent is more than you expected.

I had a chance to go to a trip with my wife to west Europe, beginning from Düsseldorf, Germany to Amsterdam, Netherlands and Brussels and Bruges, Belgium. It was a short but long trip. We arranged accommodation and transport before we go.

Travelling in Europe is expensive. Accommodation is some cities are more expensive than the others. Amsterdam is an example. I had to pay more than Copenhagen, which is also an expensive city,

I’m warning: This is not a travel article as expected. I haven’t seen neither Amsterdam nor Brussels nor Bruges before, so my aim was to see them first. And because it was only a two and a half day trip, we moved fast to see as many places as we could (and that is what we do on most of our trips). I will not recommend food, hotel, etc as I don’t have enough data to compare.

Our journey began in Düsseldorf, capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia. You can find more information about the city here and here. As a habitant of a very-dense city, Düsseldorf is an ordinary big city for me.

In the early morning, we traveled to Amsterdam, which began with a pain of elevator-less main station of Düsseldorf (at least we couldn’t find). We had two big suitcases and two backpacks, and they changed the platform of the train last minute. At least the ticket collector of the train realized what happened and waited for us to take the train.

It took 2,5 hours to get to Amsterdam Main Station. We got to our hotel, left our suitcases and began exploring the city under rain! Yes, almost all of our trip was under rain. I wanted to take photos with my camera (Sony a7c), but it was not waterproof, so I didn’t risk it most of the time. Most of my photos were taken by phone (iPhone 13 Pro Max).

Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands. It is famous with canals, Red Light District, museums, architecture, bicycles and more. You can information about the city here and here. Also, if you like football, Amsterdam is the home of famous Ajax FC.

As a tourist, you can visit many places in Amsterdam but you must be careful, motor vehicles are safer than cyclists for pedestrians. There are many many amount of bicycles in Amsterdam and they are not very nice to pedestrians on their way.

If you like to walk, you can start from Amsterdam Central Station to Dam Square to Vondelpark. If you like shopping, you can not find a mall to find shops in it, but so many shops in Kalverstraat.

There are some parks like Vondelpark to walk and run, and of course cycle, around the city. They probably will be better looking during spring and summer.

We went to the famous windmill town of Zaandam, but because of the heavy rain, we couldn’t visit the surrounding to take some photos. It is a pleasant view, so you should visit.

Next early morning, we were on our way to Brussels, the capital of Belgium. It was still raining but we had more photos here. Brussels is a big city and hosts many international organizations, like NATO and European Union. Maybe because of this diversity, this city was the dirtiest big cities I’ve ever been around Europe.

Just outside Brussels Central Station, you can see Mont des Arts (Mountain of Arts) with a big garden and buildings surrounding, which museums are located. If you like museums, almost all big cities of Europe has lots of them, you won’t get bored.

Behind Mont des Arts, there’s the Palais de Bruxelles (Royal Palace of Brussels), hosting King and Queen of Belgium. It was under maintenance and can not see many details (There were so many construction sites in the cities we visited, more than I expected, that destroys most of my photos).

Next to the Palace, there is Parc de Bruxelles (park of Brussels) which has interesting statues of Le Chat and many walking paths.

Again, there are other parks to visit around the city, like Parc du Cinquantenaire. There’s Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and Military History, Art & History Museum and Royal Military Academy inside this park. (and yes, it is still raining)

We later moved on to Ixelles. There were (and are) lots of shops and known brands on the main street. If you like shopping, you can visit.

Our next stop was Law Courts of Brussels. In front of the Courthouse (which is actually a Palace), there was a big square with a statue and a ferris wheel! I checked on Google Maps and there’s absolutely nothing there.

You can see some part of Brussels from Ascenseur des Marolles. Unlike Amsterdam, Brussels was hilly and it was tiring walking around.

Our next stop was Grand Palace square. There are many shops around, also a hotel and a museum. Unfortunately, my lens was not wide enough to take better phots of the square (Sony 28-60mm f/4-5,6).

We proceeded to Galeries Royales Saint Hubert, which has lots of shops and art galleries inside. It was an interestingly long building, actually a street with lots of houses that were combined together with a roof on top. If you like chocolate, there are lots of shops of chocolate.

We headed for Bruges, our next destination for the day. The city center was full of historical buildings. Despite the rain, it was a pleasure to walk around the city. There were noticeable amount of big churches and cathedrals around the city.

We always like good food and like to eat. And we didn’t miss the chance to get the waffle of Belgium 🙂

It was a tiring day and we headed back to the main station for our trip back to Amsterdam. We needed a good rest for our last day of the trip.

Back in a cold but sunny Amsterdam day, we started the day early to see as many places as we could. We took some photos that we couldn’t before.

Our trip ended by the flight from Schiphol Airport to İstanbul. Next destination will probably be Vienna, Austria and Budapest, Hungary. I hope we will be there in better weather conditions. See you after next trip!