The Standard Hotel - River and Canal Cruises in Holland and Belgium

With the additional attraction of heading upriver down the Rhine to Switzerland, many of the major cruise companies run river cruises throughout Holland, during the spring tulip-blooming season. Picturesque scenes, quiet, river and canal cruises in Holland and Belgium offer peaceful.

) (Scenes from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind? Is a cruise ship seemingly passing majestically through a cow pasture - and a cruise ship crossing a major highway overhead, and two of the most startling sights I've seen there, holland is littered with canals.

Stick with the small stuff. It's not recommended for beginners in self-hire boats to compete with the traffic and huge tugs on the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal, however. Your cruiser can be moored in the marina just across from the main train station in Amsterdam and it's possible to take the little Vecht River from Amsterdam to Utrecht. Such as those from Boating Holidays and Leboat, many of the canals can be enjoyed on self hire boats, as well as large river cruise ships.

Also just made for cruising - or fishing, northern Netherlands has hundreds of interconnected small lakes. The locks are left open in the summer. Individuals boating on the canals is a way of life in Holland and one can enjoy many canal-side bars and cafes.

Tulip Time in Holland ventures into Belgium and ends up in Antwerp, this particular cruise. Daffodils and other flowers are on display, there some 6 million tulips. One can take a ferry from England and thence transfer to a CroisiEurope riverboat for a visit to Keukenhof Gardens, for instance, for a tulip time cruise. There's almost too much to see and too many places to visit.

As well as cruising all the way to Brussels, holland and Belgium River Cruises offers a tulip tour.

So it's relatively simple to take a river cruise from Amsterdam to Rotterdam or Antwerp via river and canal, many of these tours co-mingle the waterways of Holland and Belgium.

Not in Brussels, that's where I would have put the "capital" of Europe, if they had asked me. And Germany, belgium, it also has the perfect location at the junction of the Netherlands. City that has best climate in Holland, walkable, but not too many) It's a neat, there are hills there, (Yes. On the river Maas (or Meuse) it's in the hilly area. A visit to Maastricht is certainly in order, while you're in the south of Holland.

The River Cloud, more cruises can be found at: Affordable Tours offers a 9 day round-trip Amsterdam to Amsterdam on one of the most luxurious river boats in Europe.

" Gouda and Alkmaar, haarlem, cobble-stoned towns as Delft, to "such enchanting, river Cruises in Holland and Belgium takes you on a barge voyage from Amsterdam as the base.

Holland River Tours and Feenstra Rijn Lijn are two Dutch companies that offer river cruises on about a dozen ships.

Amadeus cruise line also offers Holland/Belgium tours.

The Waal merges with the Rhine which leaves Holland near Emmerich. Past Utrecht and onto the River Waal near Tiel, the Amsterdam-Rhine canal, cruise down the busiest canal in Europe, rhine voyages begin there. Amsterdam is still the main attraction, in Holland, however.

" Put in for the night. Full meals on board. You will visit the red light district with our hostess, after dinner. I found this comment on a river cruise company's website to be rather amusing: "We will cross the border in Emmerich and navigate towards Utrecht - Amsterdam. The reverse is true when river cruising from Basel to Amsterdam, of course.

. . Talk about a full-service cruise.

This is the way Amsterdam was meant to be seen. And a slow cruise through its miles and miles of canals, unique architecture, including its museums, there are many other things to see in Amsterdam, anyway. But I rather doubt it, i don't know if they meant what they said.

A river cruise through Holland and Belgium can certainly be enjoyed for its own version of quiet beauty, and mountain scenery, dale, while not as spectacular as some river cruises through hill.