What's the cheapest way of travelling around Belgium and Holland?

After having arrived safely in Brussels, we were now asking ourselves the same question we had a few days before in the city of Łódź; how could we save as much on transport as possible?

This is something you definitely have to think about, since far from being stingy with money, a trip starting in Brussels and continuing on to Bruges, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Utrecht and Eindhoven is never going to be cheap. Just the flight to Brussels had cost us nearly forty euros each, and the cost of getting from city to city this February would soon be adding to this. Here's a list of what we did, for the benefit of those of you who'd also like to visit these cities:

1. From Brussels Airport to the city centre: the cheapest method of transport is the bus at 13 euros. It sounds extortionate that you have to pay over 10 euros to get to the city centre from an airport which is also in this city, but when you consider that Bussels is 65 kilometres across, you'll get an idea of how expensive this trip is going to turn out.

   Add this to the cost of buses, metros or trams which you'll need to use to get to wherever you're staying within the city, which is around 1. 70 euros per journey. A day ticket costs 10 euros (though I'm not sure if this is worth buying - plan your day carefully, and then decide).

2. From Brussels to Bruges: the distance between these two cities should only take you an hour and seven minutes according to Google Maps, but on the train it will cost you no less than 28 euros. It's tough making yourself shell out so much for a journey of that length, but the truth is that these are high-speed trains, so in the end you have to grin and bear it in order to get to one of the most beautiful cities in the whole of Europe.
3. When we moved on to Rotterdam, the journey again set us back another forty euros, making our total spending so far 120 euros, not including sight-seeing or other spending - literally just on getting from A to B.
4. The next stop is a must: Amsterdam. Only seventy kilometres from Rotterdam, the train still cost 15 euros, a joke really as it isn't that far away. Current spending: 135 euros.
5. On to way to Eindhoven, we stopped at Utrecht, which cost us 15 euros more for the bus and pushed our total spending up to 150 euros.
6. Our last stop was Eindhoven itself, and the train there from Rotterdam cost thirteen euros: cheap enough, but remember we also spent money on food, hostels, partying, buying souvenirs, etc. We had by now spent 160 euros on travel.
7. Finally, we got the train from Eindhoven city to the airport, meaning that our grand total of money spent on transport was 170 euros.

Something else worth considering is renting a car. We used a company called 'Sixt'. A lot of you will think this is a bad idea, not just because the rent itself is expensive, but also because petrol can be expensive in these two little European countries. You'd be right in thinking this, since petrol was at 1. 80 in every petrol station we stopped at, and diesel at more than 1. 60. Every kilometre we travelled cost money, and it wasn't cheap.

There's one thing we've forgotten about however, something very important when thinking about whether to rent a car abroad. There were five of us, we were going to travel together, and we would all fit in the car. We would have the freedom to go wherever we liked, whenever we liked and take a break whenever we wanted. Not including the flights, hiring a car would cost around 120 to 130 euros per person, the total cost of hiring the car being 600 euros and the expected cost of petrol being around 100. We decided to try to find a well-known and international company, so that there wouldn't be any nasty surprises, and decided that this currently looked like the best option to choose.

The first company we came across was 'Sixt', of course. We had used them before in Spain, and were convinced they were professional and well-organised. The price would be around 450 euros, so we decided to look at some other pages before making our final decision.

We were of course looking for a cheap car, diesel if possible, which would have enough room in its boot for five people's luggage. We came across 'Europcar', who were offering practically the same terms and conditions as Sixt, but for a slightly better price - 380 euros or so. We were on the point of making a booking with this company when something occurred to me - since we were flying with Ryanair, perhaps we should take a look at the car rental offers connected with the flight, as sometimes there are discounts. The car rental company associated with Ryanair is called 'Herz', and they give you a huge discount if you make the booking through Ryanair: renting the car would only cost us 198 euros! Without the discount, renting this car would cost around 900 euros, so it really was a good deal.

This really did sound appealing to us, and having read the terms and conditions, it didn't seem like there were any hidden extras. There was no maximum distance, they fill up your petrol tank for you before you leave and require a deposit (a good idea, as I explained in my post about my Christmas trip), and on top of all that, the price included VAT, the location charge (the tax for parking the car at train stations or at airports) and supplements. For all of this, it was a brilliant price - only 38 euros per person for the rental, plus petrol money divided by five. We didn't think twice about making a booking with them, as there was no company offering better prices. Herz is an internationally recognised company, so we felt we could trust them.

We reserved a Ford Focus or at least something similar a few days before February 1st, and were very excited about picking it up.

After we arrived at the airport in Brussels, we asked where to find the car rental companies, and were told that they were all in the same area, just on different floors. It therefore wasn't difficult to find Herz. We went to their booth and explained that we had made a reservation under one of our names, and then something happened that we'd been worried would happen... what it was? You'll find out in my next post, as this one's getting too long now.

To be continued...!

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