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The Brabo Fountain in Antwerp's Grote Markt, surrounded by historic guildhouses and the city hall decorated with colorful flags under a bright sky.
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Netherlands/Belgium

Canals, Culture & Art: A Voyage Through the Low Countries

Program No. 25665RJ
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Itinerary
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All itineraries and excursions are subject to change. Weather and water conditions may affect the progress of the ship, and we may miss ports if it is not safe to dock. The operators reserve the right to change the content and duration of excursions without prior notice and so the cruise itinerary should always be regarded as provisional. Whenever possible, Road Scholar’s published daily schedule will indicate port arrival and departure times. Prior to departure, if there is a major change, we will make every effort to alert you. For less significant changes, we will update you during orientation. Thank you for your understanding.
Duration
10 days
9 nights
What's Included
22 meals ( 8B, 7L, 7D )
4 expert-led lectures
10 expert-led field trips
1 hands-on experience
An experienced Group Leader
8 nights of accommodations
Taxes and customary gratuity
Road Scholar Assurance Plan
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Activity Note
Hotel check-in available from 3:00 p.m. Remember to bring your nametag (sent previously). Luggage may be stored at the front desk while we wait for our rooms to become available.
Afternoon:
Orientation: The Group Leader will greet everyone and lead introductions. We will review the up-to-date program schedule, discuss roles and responsibilities, logistics, safety guidelines, emergency procedures, and answer questions. This is a Chartered Exclusively for Road Scholar Adventures Afloat program. Port stops and field trips are subject to change as weather and river conditions could affect the progress of the vessel, making it run late and possibly miss ports if it is not safe to dock. The cruise itinerary should therefore be regarded as provisional. The time available in each port is set by the cruise line, which may mean free time in port is limited. The cruise line reserves the right change the itinerary without prior notice. When possible, the Road Scholar daily schedule indicates port arrival and departure times. Our knowledgeable Group Leader will also serve as our Study Leader, giving lectures and providing expert commentary throughout the program. Periods in the schedule designated as “Free time” and “At leisure” offer opportunities to do what you like and make your experience even more meaningful and memorable according to your personal preferences. The Group Leader will be happy to offer suggestions. Program activities, schedules, personnel, and indicated distances or times may change due to local circumstances/conditions. In the event of changes, we will alert you as quickly as possible. Thank you for your understanding.
Dinner:
At a local restaurant
Evening:
At leisure. Continue getting to know your fellow Road Scholars, settle in, and get a good night’s rest for the day ahead.
Activity Note
Getting on/off motorcoach; driving about 30 miles total ; approximately 2 hours, with stops. Walking up to 4 miles total throughout the day; cobblestones and uneven pavement, sometimes in very crowded places; stairs without railings. Extent and duration of walking and other activities during independent time according to personal choice.
Breakfast:
At the hotel.
Morning:
After breakfast, we will set out on foot to the Grand-Place. We will step into what Victor Hugo called the most beautiful square in the world and let it stop us in our tracks. Built in the late 17th century after French bombardment reduced the medieval square to rubble, the Grand-Place rose from the ashes in a burst of collective civic pride — every guild in Brussels competing to outdo the next. The result is staggering: a tight quadrangle of gilded baroque guild houses, each one more ornate than the last, presided over by the soaring Gothic town hall whose spire has anchored the Brussels skyline since 1449. At its peak, the square held the flower market, the grain market, and the executions. Later, we will board the motorcoach for a panoramic tour of Brussels: the soaring Atomium built for the 1958 World's Fair, the elegant Royal Palace, the art nouveau masterpieces tucked into side streets — the city that produced both Magritte and the EU has more layers than most people expect.
Lunch:
At a local restaurant.
Afternoon:
We will drive south to Waterloo, where in June 1815 the fate of Europe was decided in a single afternoon. We will stand on the ridge where Wellington held his line, walk the field where Napoleon's cavalry charged and broke, and climb the Lion's Mound for a sweeping view of the landscape that witnessed one of history's most dramatic reversals. Our expert will bring it all to life — the strategy, the personalities, the stakes — in a way no book ever quite can.
Dinner:
On your own.
Evening:
At leisure. Prepare for check-out and transfer in the morning.
Activity Note
Getting on/off motorcoach; driving about 70 miles total (110 km); approximately 2 hours, with stops. Walking up to 4 miles total throughout the day; cobblestones and uneven pavement, sometimes in very crowded places; stairs without railings. Extent and duration of walking and other activities during independent time according to personal choice.
Breakfast:
At the hotel.
Morning:
Arriving in Bruges via motorcoach this morning, we will have an expert-led walk in the beautiful, fairytale city of Bruges. This field trip will take us along the Minnewater Park, the Begijnhof (courtyard of the Beguins – secular nuns), the city's medieval street, and finishing at the Belfry of Bruges. Inside the Church of Our Lady, we will come face to face with a work that has no business being here — and yet here it is: Michelangelo's Madonna of Bruges, the only sculpture by the master to leave Italy during his lifetime. It is serene, intimate, and utterly extraordinary. Then, we will board a boat for a gentle ride through the canals — a perspective of Bruges that few visitors ever experience. We will see the city reflected in still water, its spires rising above the roofline, exactly as it would have appeared to the Flemish painters who immortalised it centuries ago.
Lunch:
We will have lunch in a Bruges brewery, over local ales and Flemish cuisine.
Afternoon:
After lunch we will have a hands-on chocolate tasting with an artisan chocolatier — because Belgian chocolate is not a souvenir, it is a cultural act. The rest of the afternoon is free for independent exploration. You may enjoy visiting the Museum of Flemish Primitives (also known as the Groeninge Museum). The group leader will also be happy to offer suggestions. We’ll meet at a predetermined time and location and return to Brussels via motorcoach to board the MS Lafayette.
Dinner:
On Board the ship
Evening:
At leisure.
Activity Note
Getting on/off coach, approximately 1/2 hour total. Walking about 3 miles, approximately 3 hours; paved terrain; periods of standing in the museum; unavoidable stairs and cobblestones in the city. Extent/duration of walking and other activities during independent time according to personal choice.
Breakfast:
OnBoard ship
Morning:
Setting out from the hotel, we will take the Motorcoach to the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels— one of the great art collections of Europe. From Bruegel the Elder's bewildering landscapes to the surreal universe of Magritte, our guide will illuminate not just the paintings but the Flemish and Belgian spirit they embody.. We will return to the ship for lunch as the Lafayette casts off and begins her journey through Belgium's inland waterways. .
Lunch:
On Board
Afternoon:
You will enjoy an expert lecture on board, exploring the fascinating and sometimes combustible relationship between Flanders and Wallonia — Belgium's two great linguistic and cultural communities. How does a nation function when it speaks two languages, follows two traditions, and sometimes disagrees about almost everything?
Dinner:
On Board
Evening:
At leisure.
Activity Note
Getting on/off a motorcoach; driving about 10 miles total; Walking about 3 miles throughout the day; cobblestones and uneven pavement, stairs without railings.
Breakfast:
On Board
Morning:
Our local expert will lead us on a walking tour through the city that was once the commercial capital of the known world — the streets where diamond merchants, spice traders, and bankers from across Europe converged to make their fortunes. We will visit the Cathedral of Our Lady, where Rubens' altarpieces glow with a power that still commands the room five centuries on. We will walk the Grote Markt, admire the guild houses, and stroll along the riverfront — every corner of Antwerp will tell a story about ambition, beauty, and trade.
Lunch:
On Board
Afternoon:
After lunch, we will settle in for an afternoon that will prepare us perfectly for tomorrow's extraordinary experience in Ghent. Our lecturer will guide us through the world of Jan van Eyck and the creation of the Ghent Altarpiece — the most complex, most stolen, and most celebrated painting of the Middle Ages. And then, as the perfect finale: a screening of The Monuments Men on board. We will watch the film knowing that tomorrow morning, we will stand in front of the very masterpiece it was made to save.
Dinner:
On Board
Evening:
At leisure.
Activity Note
Getting on/off boat; Getting on/off coach; less than 1/2 hour s. Walking about 3 miles, approximately 3 hours; uneven pavement, unavoidable stairs and cobblestones in the city. Extent/duration of walking and other free time activities according to personal choice.
Breakfast:
On Board
Morning:
After a short transfer to the city center via motorcoach, we will visit St. Bavo's Cathedral and see The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb. The Ghent Altarpiece — painted by Hubert and Jan van Eyck in 1432, stolen thirteen times, hidden in a salt mine by the Nazis, and recovered by the Monument Men — will be revealed in a luminosity that will take our breath away. After last night's film, standing before it in person will be one of those rare travel moments that genuinely moves us. Our guide will then lead us through the rest of this magnificent medieval city: the three towers that define the skyline, the guildhalls along the Graslei, the brooding Gravensteen castle that has seen eight centuries of history. We will then have free time to wander into a side street, find a café, and follow our instincts. We will return to the ship for lunch.
Lunch:
On Board
Afternoon:
We will enjoy an expert lecture on the Delta Plan and Dutch water management that will prepare us perfectly for what we will see tomorrow — one of the greatest feats of engineering in human history, born from one of the worst natural disasters Europe has ever known. In the Late afternoon, we will arrive in the Netherlands.
Dinner:
On Board
Evening:
At leisure.
Activity Note
Getting on/off a motorcoach; driving about 70 miles, approximately 1.5 hours riding time. Walking up to 3 miles total throughout the day; cobblestones and uneven pavement; unavoidable stairs, some without railings; periods of standing in museum.
Breakfast:
On Board
Morning:
Our morning in Middelburg will be ours to explore freely. This elegant, largely car-free town on the island of Walcheren has a lovely medieval centre, a splendid Gothic abbey, and the kind of unhurried Dutch atmosphere that will make us want to slow down and simply be somewhere. We will browse the market, walk the abbey gardens, and find a terrace to order coffee the way the Dutch do.
Lunch:
On Board
Afternoon:
We will visit the site of the Delta Works — the monumental system of dams, sluices, and storm-surge barriers built in response to the catastrophic North Sea flood of 1953, which killed nearly 2,000 people in a single night. The scale of what the Dutch achieved here is genuinely staggering: a 40-year national project that redrew the map of their coastline and stands today as one of the seven wonders of the modern world. Walking among these structures, we will understand something profound about what it means to live below sea level — and to refuse to be defeated by it.
Dinner:
On Board
Evening:
At leisure.
Activity Note
Getting on/offCoach; less than 1/2 hour ride. Walking about 3 miles, approximately 2 hours; uneven pavement, unavoidable stairs, and cobblestones; periods of standing in museum. Extent/duration of walking and other free time activities according to personal choice.
Breakfast:
On Board
Morning:
The Lafayette will glide through the Dutch waterscape on a morning of quiet beauty. As flat green fields, church spires, and cycling bridges drift past our windows, our Road Scholar lecturer will take the stage for a final onboard talk — an exploration of Dutch culture, tradition, and identity. Tulips and tolerance, trading empires and Calvinist thrift, Rembrandt and the Golden Age. What makes the Netherlands distinctively, irreducibly Dutch?
Lunch:
OnBoard
Afternoon:
Then, in the afternoon, we will arrive at Kinderdijk. Nineteen windmills, built in the 1740s to drain the polders, will stand in a row along the waterway exactly as they have for nearly three centuries. This is the image most of us carry of the Netherlands before we ever set foot here — and seeing it in reality, at scale, in the soft Dutch light, will be deeply satisfying. A UNESCO World Heritage site and a working monument to the same spirit of water management we will have been following all week — it will be the perfect final chapter of our cruise.
Dinner:
We will dress for the occasion and gather in the dining room for a Gala Farewell Dinner — a celebration of the friendships forged, the discoveries made, and the extraordinary journey we will have shared together.
Evening:
At leisure.
Activity Note
Hotel check-out by 12:00 p.m. See your program’s “Getting There” information regarding transfers.
Breakfast:
On Board. This concludes our program.
Morning:
If you are returning home, safe travels. If you are staying on independently, have a wonderful time. If you are transferring to another Road Scholar program, detailed instructions are included in your Information Packet for that program. We hope you enjoy Road Scholar learning adventures and look forward to having you on rewarding programs in the future. Don’t forget to join our Facebook page and follow us on Instagram. Best wishes for all your journeys!