A day in Den Bosch

Den Bosch or 's Hertogenbosch is my favourite city in The Netherlands. It is the capital city of the province North Brabant, and it's one of the largest cities there. It's the first Dutch city that I have ever visited, and therefore I might be a little bit biased, but for me it's much nicer than for example Amsterdam.

It is full of cute houses, countless restaurants and bars, shops and boutiques and there are also many opportunities for cultural as well as sport activities. It is only about 10 minutes drive from my in-laws, so we come here every time we are visiting them in The Netherlands. I visited Den Bosch almost 13 years ago for the very first time, and since then plenty of times, so I can see how the city changed over the last decade.

There are new residential areas, the old town has been renovated, and the city attracted popular companies and brands. More and more people come to live there, and I'm not surprised as this would probably be my choice too if we would ever were to move to The Netherlands.

Let me take you for a walk, and see if you will like it too 🙂

We usually leave our car in a parking garage which is connected to a museum, and on the way out there are two maps of Den Bosch.

This one show the medieval town with its town walls:

And this one is a more recent one. You can see how much the town grew over the centuries.

It was a rainy and windy weekend, and the weather was changing every few minutes. When we got out of the parking garage it was fine, but then it started to rain, so my husband was holding the umbrella above my head while I was taking photos 🙂

As I mentioned in my last post, there is a lot of water everywhere in The Netherlands and Den Bosch is not an exception. There are many canals in the old town.

This park was built recently. There are a few sculptures placed around the park.

Such as this giraffe that is the star of the park!

Let's move closer to the city center...

But first we need to cross a small canal which is guarded by this I would say a little bit angry dwarf...

Many buildings are constructed on top of canals with their balconies above the water. It looks charming...

Looking back to the park...

And here we are! We reached the old town with its stunning St John's Cathedral. It's an iconic building with beautiful interior. We didn't visit it this time, but I will take you there during the Christmas to see the decoration. It is amazing.

These are typical Dutch buildings and you can find similar ones in every city in The Netherlands.

The cathedral is currently being reconstructed, so we cannot see it in its full glory.

These leaning houses fascinate me. I don't understand how this is not a safety risk, but it seems that people don't mind as all of them are residential buildings.

Normally, these streets would be full of people on Saturday, but I guess many stayed home due to the weather.

I loved this small bakery (on the left)...

One of many charming corners in the city...

We also visited my favourite café called Bagels and Beans. I love their bagels!

But first I started with matcha latte which is too sweet even when I asked it without sugar...

I took a new bagel with Indonesian flavour, but I must admit that I was disappointed. The flavours didn't complement each other and the bagel was too hard and dry.

This is what I expect when I come to The Netherlands: canals, typical architecture and bicycles everywhere!

I have realized only now that the same sort of a tree is planted on both sides of the river.

We wanted to check if the most famous local bakery in Brabant had vegan Bossche Bollen, so we headed in the direction of the main train station as this is where the bakery is located. Sadly, there were about 20 people waiting in the queue, so we left before we could check...

I will let you form your own opinion about this sculpture 🙂

And we also saw the fountain with The Bossche Dragon. It is a golden statue on top of a fountain. The statue shines almost like a sun during bright days.