Blogs from Breda, North Brabant, Netherlands, Europe

Why would you go to Breda? A perfectly valid question put by some who have knowledge of this part of the world. There was no big reason, no major attractions to visit and no relatives or long lost family to track down. For us, Breda is a middle sized city in the Netherlands that looked like it might be a reasonable place to visit that wasn't Amsterdam, Rotterdam or even a particularly large city likely to have large squads of tourists wandering around. Not that we are in any way anti-tourist, we simply wanted slightly fewer of them competing for space for a little while. In the end it was a question of why not rather than why. Intercity fast trains come to Breda from Amsterdam with just one stop in Rotterdam. This trip takes around ... read more

This was my second and last day in Breda and I had much to see. My hotel was on the Grote Markt (large market) and I could see that the market was open for business. There was a number of vendors selling food or clothes. The food vendors were selling tasty foods at a much reduced price compared to the good restaurant. There was probable things available at the market, but I had to scoot and see other places. I walked by some neat old buildings and some neat gardens. I also walked past Sint Antoniuskerk that was built for a Catholic church in 1837. I walked to Breda's Museum, that was closed then. The structure was impressive and make for an interesting walk around the building complex. This is one of the oldest buildings in ... read more

Arriving at Breda Centraal I took a taxi to my hotel Shadshotel De Kloc, conveniently located on the downtown Grote Markt. With only two days here in Breda it was time for me to get walking to see this beautiful old city. Right there on the market square was the Grote Kerk or Onze Lieve Vrouwekerk (Church of Our Lady); a good place for me to start my tour of this beautiful city. The inside of this fine old church was beautiful with its stained glass windows and a large pipe organ. (I would love to be inside the church when its pipe organ was playing.) Other attractions include artifacts, high colourful ceilings, smaller chapels, and floor markers (graves) for famous people in history that are interned there. The outside of the church was impressive with ... read more

One of our friends mother is living in Holland with a Dutch gentleman she met some years ago. They spend about half the year in Holland and half in New Zealand. We had wanted to try to meet up with them (we have met before in New Zealand). We were fortunate to be able to arrange to spend a day with them and off we went by train to Breda, just over an hour south of Amsterdam. Barbs and Martin met us at the station and from then our day was planned and hosted superbly. They had decided they wanted to show us another side of Holland "as everyone thinks Amsterdam is Holland". They live in a small village/town, Den Hout, out in the country. From the station we were taken for coffee in the small ... read more

We returned home to Drimmelen in glorious sunshine and were met again by our favourite harbour master...Marie Louise. We had a lovely passage back in the sunshine, lunch for a final time in the Biesbosch where we used the box moorings in a more convenient than the accepted Dutch way and then mooring up in OUR spot in Drimmelen with the power station as our view from the deck – sounds awful but we have grown quite fond of it!! We had 36 hours to do everything necessary to leave Isabela in her winter home for the next 6 months. So in true Schroeder fashion we did a list of jobs that this entailed...the rather fluid total came to 40. We also have a list of what we are leaving on Isabela, what we have to ... read more