No clubbing, bars or McDonalds for me.
Things I like: modern art, historic places and museums, nature. Good restaurants, every now and then one with regional specialities. Music: classical, world, acoustic. Theater, yes. I've rarely seen a musical but I'm open to suggestions.
Modern Art is one thing I don't know about.
Historic Places and museums: If this is really one of your interests then I have to say Rome ! When I went there I was in the city for a week of just visiting places, there's so much to see: Coliseum, Forums, Old Churches, Ghetto of Rome, ...
Closer to the Netherlands, I would say Berlin & Potsdam, just several hours drive. Lots of modern history: Potsdam is where the Allied leaders met to decide how to divide the world amongst themselves. Berlin itself has lots of history and I would even be able to recommend a cheapish motel/hotel. There's a lot of museums, both for art and history. It's a very nice city.
Good restaurants you would find everywhere, best bet would be to just google what you want to eat. Most places now have restaurant indices online.
Music: Berlin for live music. Rome for classical.
Theater: That would be London hands down I believe, unless you understand French. Same for musicals. London also has history, but since parts of London have been bombed quite heavily, you wouldn't see much of it. Lots of museums too for both art and history, including a good one for modern art, I forgot the name, but I can ask my sister for the name.
Musicals: If you've never seen one then I would suggest the Lion King. It's quite good.
By the way, are u going on your own or with a family, girlfriend, boyfriend, .... ?
I was thinking about spring, early summer or early fall - in winter I'll visit London (2nd time - any suggestions though? Weird places I should visit?). I don't mind summer other than prices tend to go up during that season and places of interest are difficult to see thanks to the swarming tourists.
There's the British Museum, not very weird, but tons of history there (literally). The London Dungeon is quite good too, might be scary if you're going with young kids. Oh yeah, if Lion King is not your cup of tea, then Chicago is apparently quite good, but when I went to see it (well, when my parents dragged me out) I was about 8 or 9 years old and I fell asleep, but my mom really enjoyed it.
If you prefer theatre, then Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap is quite good and so is the Woman in Black.
If Mayumana is in town I would really recommend to see them, but they do tour Europe, so you might have seen them.
Last year I've been to Paris (for the 3rd time) and Brugge (Belgium, a weekend). I live in The Netherlands, but if someone's really enthusiastic about all sorts of places in Amsterdam, I'll go, this year or next year, but maybe a weekend though.
If you haven't you should go to Antwerp, there's quite a lot of artsy stuff as well as some history. I wouldn't say for a whole week, but you can definitely do stuff for 3-4 days and then I would say you could do 3-4 days in Brussels too. So that would be your week.
There's actually theatre in Antwerp and Brussels too as well as quite a few places with Live Music, but I haven't been for a while, so if you are going, tell me in advance and I would try and find out for both Brussels and Antwerp from friends.
So, nearby and accessible by train and/or car : Antwerp/Brussels, Berlin or London are my favorites.
Pricewise: Antwerp is very cheap compared to most other places. Brussels and Berlin are quite similar to each other, I think and London is about twice the price of Antwerp.
If you want more details on some of this just ask
