Tulip Time Highlights for Garden and Nature Lovers

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (EMBARKATION) Welcome to Belgium. Your Suite Ship® is Ready for Boarding.

Flights into Brussels must arrive by 2:00 pm.

Guests must be on board ship by 5 pm.

Enjoy dinner on board as you sail for Ghent this evening.

EVENING/OVERNIGHT CRUISE TO GHENT

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GHENT Medieval Masterpieces and Flemish Finery

Visit the Adventure Center for today’s activities with your Adventure Host.

ACTIVE Explore a different side of Ghent by bike with your Adventure Host, OR:

DISCOVERY Join us in the Landscape Park Bulskampveld for the ultimate relaxing day in the biggest forest in the west of Flanders, OR:

CLASSIC Explore Ghent—“The Diamond of Flanders”— with a Guided Sightseeing Tour of this showcase of medieval Flemish wealth. You’ll visit St. Bavo’s Cathedral—with its remarkable Flemish artwork.

Alternatively, you may choose to join a full-day Guided Optional Excursion of Bruges to explore its canals, cobbled streets, and medieval buildings. You’ll see its crisscrossed canals, the 13th-century belfry of Market Square, and charming patrician houses.

This evening, enjoy live entertainment onboard.

OVERNIGHT DOCKING IN GHENT

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GHENT Battlefield Remembrances in Flanders

DISCOVERY Visit the In Flanders Field Museum in Ypres—named for the soldier’s famed poem. Learn about the story of the invasion of Belgium, the first months of the mobilization, the four years trench war in the Westhoek, the end of the war, and the lasting remembrance to follow. After your visit, enjoy lunch at the museum’s café.

DISCOVERY Following the museum, visit battlefields, cemeteries, memorials and private collections.

DISCOVERY Experience the Last Post Ceremony, taking place nightly under the arches of the Menin Gate. Enjoy some free time for dinner before the Ceremony starts.

OVERNIGHT CRUISE TO MIDDELBURG

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MIDDELBURG, HOLLAND A Spicy History in Middelburg’s Dutch Harbor Town

CLASSIC Join a Guided Walking Tour through the winding cobblestones and canals of Middelburg. See the 15th-century Gothic Town Halland learn about its important role in the spice trade and Dutch East India trading.

Enjoy lunch on board while cruising to Veere.

ACTIVE Alternatively bike from Middelburg to Veere with your Adventure Host.

VEERE

History and Scottish Houses

CLASSIC Explore the town of Veere with an expert local guide.

DISCOVERY While sailing satisfy your curiosity about botany and nature during a lecture hosted by a local expert.

EVENING/OVERNIGHT CRUISE TO KINDERDIJK

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KINDERDIJK–ROTTERDAM Harnessing the Wind for 300 Years

Join your Adventure Host for today’s special activities.

ACTIVE See the windmills of Kinderdijk by bike with your Adventure Host, OR:

CLASSIC Join a Guided Tour of Kinderdijk where 19 windmills were built in 1740 as flood prevention and water management. You’ll hear about the windmill’s vital role in the Netherland’s history and why it became a national symbol of Holland.

Enjoy a cruise through Rotterdam harbor.

ACTIVE Experience Rotterdam by bike with your Adventure Host, OR:

DISCOVERY Join a Guided Visit to Floating Farm Rotterdam, the first floating farm in the world and regarded as one of the many examples of green innovation in the Netherlands, OR:

CLASSIC Join a Guided Sightseeing Tour of Rotterdam featuring innovative architecture, including the marvelous Erasmus Bridge.

Later, enjoy live entertainment onboard.

OVERNIGHT CRUISE TO ZAANDAM

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ZAANDAM Windmills, Waterways, and Waving Fields of Flowers

CLASSIC Join a half-day Guided Tour of breathtaking Keukenhof—known as the “Garden of Europe”—for its 70 acres of lush parkland, lakes, and the world’s largest flower gardens—with more than seven million tulips, daffodils and hyacinths as well as other bulbs, planted each year.

Alternatively spend your time to explore independently the quintessential Dutch town of Zaandam.

Cruise to Haarlem this afternoon while enjoying lunch on board.

HAARLEM

Tulips and North Sea Trading Ports

ACTIVE Enjoy an easy bike ride to the beach with your Adventure Host, OR:

CLASSIC Visit Haarlem, a major flower bulbs growing district outside of Amsterdam. Explore the former North Sea trading port with its medieval features, gabled houses, and leafy courtyards.

DISCOVERY While sailing, discover more about botany and nature joining a lecture hosted by a local expert.

Enjoy dinner on board your ship this evening as you sail to Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands.

OVERNIGHT DOCKING IN AMSTERDAM

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Amsterdam combines the unrivaled beauty of the 17th-century Golden Age city center with plenty of museums and art of the highest order, not to mention a remarkably laid-back atmosphere. It all comes together to make this one of the world's most appealing and offbeat metropolises in the world. Built on a latticework of concentric canals like an aquatic rainbow, Amsterdam is known as the City of Canals—but it's no Venice, content to live on moonlight serenades and former glory. Quite the contrary: on nearly every street here you'll find old and new side by side—quiet corners where time seems to be holding its breath next to streets like neon-lit Kalverstraat, and Red Light ladies strutting by the city's oldest church. Indeed, Amsterdam has as many lovely facets as a 40-carat diamond polished by one of the city's gem cutters. It's certainly a metropolis, but a rather small and very accessible one. Locals tend to refer to it as a big village, albeit one that happens to pack the cultural wallop of a major world destination. There are scores of concerts every day, numerous museums, summertime festivals, and, of course, a legendary year-round party scene. It's pretty much impossible to resist Amsterdam's charms. With 7,000 registered monuments, most of which began as the residences and warehouses of humble merchants, set on 160 man-made canals, and traversed by 1,500 or so bridges, Amsterdam has the largest historical inner city in Europe. Its famous circle of waterways, the grachtengordel, was a 17th-century urban expansion plan for the rich and is a lasting testament to the city’s Golden Age. This town is endearing because of its kinder, gentler nature—but a reputation for championing sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll does not alone account for Amsterdam's being one of the most popular destinations in Europe: consider that within a single square mile the city harbors some of the greatest achievements in Western art, from Rembrandt to Van Gogh. Not to mention that this is one of Europe's great walking cities, with so many of its treasures in the untouted details: tiny alleyways barely visible on the map, hidden garden courtyards, shop windows, floating houseboats, hidden hofjes(courtyards with almshouses), sudden vistas of church spires, and gabled roofs that look like so many unframed paintings. And don’t forget that the joy lies in details: elaborate gables and witty gable stones denoting the trade of a previous owner. Keep in mind that those XXX symbols you see all over town are not a mark of the city's triple-X reputation. They're part of Amsterdam's official coat of arms—three St. Andrew's crosses, believed to represent the three dangers that have traditionally plagued the city: flood, fire, and pestilence. The coat's motto ("Valiant, determined, compassionate") was introduced in 1947 by Queen Wilhelmina in remembrance of the 1941 February Strike in Amsterdam—the first time in Europe that non-Jewish people protested against the persecution of Jews by the Nazi regime.

AMSTERDAM Canals of Colorful Amsterdam

ACTIVE Join a Biking Tour through the Dutch countryside past polders, dykes, and quaint centuries-old villages, OR:

CLASSIC Explore the iconic waterways of Amsterdam on a Guided Canal Cruise past stately homes of Amsterdam’s “Golden Age", OR:

DISCOVERY Access Amsterdam’s secret gardens hidden behind the brick façades – a unique opportunity as they are normally closed to public.

This afternoon, you may like to join Guided Optional Excursion.

OVERNIGHT DOCKING IN AMSTERDAM

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Amsterdam combines the unrivaled beauty of the 17th-century Golden Age city center with plenty of museums and art of the highest order, not to mention a remarkably laid-back atmosphere. It all comes together to make this one of the world's most appealing and offbeat metropolises in the world. Built on a latticework of concentric canals like an aquatic rainbow, Amsterdam is known as the City of Canals—but it's no Venice, content to live on moonlight serenades and former glory. Quite the contrary: on nearly every street here you'll find old and new side by side—quiet corners where time seems to be holding its breath next to streets like neon-lit Kalverstraat, and Red Light ladies strutting by the city's oldest church. Indeed, Amsterdam has as many lovely facets as a 40-carat diamond polished by one of the city's gem cutters. It's certainly a metropolis, but a rather small and very accessible one. Locals tend to refer to it as a big village, albeit one that happens to pack the cultural wallop of a major world destination. There are scores of concerts every day, numerous museums, summertime festivals, and, of course, a legendary year-round party scene. It's pretty much impossible to resist Amsterdam's charms. With 7,000 registered monuments, most of which began as the residences and warehouses of humble merchants, set on 160 man-made canals, and traversed by 1,500 or so bridges, Amsterdam has the largest historical inner city in Europe. Its famous circle of waterways, the grachtengordel, was a 17th-century urban expansion plan for the rich and is a lasting testament to the city’s Golden Age. This town is endearing because of its kinder, gentler nature—but a reputation for championing sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll does not alone account for Amsterdam's being one of the most popular destinations in Europe: consider that within a single square mile the city harbors some of the greatest achievements in Western art, from Rembrandt to Van Gogh. Not to mention that this is one of Europe's great walking cities, with so many of its treasures in the untouted details: tiny alleyways barely visible on the map, hidden garden courtyards, shop windows, floating houseboats, hidden hofjes(courtyards with almshouses), sudden vistas of church spires, and gabled roofs that look like so many unframed paintings. And don’t forget that the joy lies in details: elaborate gables and witty gable stones denoting the trade of a previous owner. Keep in mind that those XXX symbols you see all over town are not a mark of the city's triple-X reputation. They're part of Amsterdam's official coat of arms—three St. Andrew's crosses, believed to represent the three dangers that have traditionally plagued the city: flood, fire, and pestilence. The coat's motto ("Valiant, determined, compassionate") was introduced in 1947 by Queen Wilhelmina in remembrance of the 1941 February Strike in Amsterdam—the first time in Europe that non-Jewish people protested against the persecution of Jews by the Nazi regime.

AMSTERDAM (DISEMBARKATION) Your cruise ends with breakfast this morning.

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