Where to Stay in Tilburg, Provincie Noord-Brabant

What is Tilburg known for?

It grew rich on wool and weaving, and it keeps that past in a famous textile museum and in an art museum set in an old wool mill, while every summer it fills for the largest funfair in the country. A king once made it his seat. Wool and art mark the city.

What are the main landmarks in Tilburg?

The Textile Museum keeps the old craft of Tilburg. It sits in a working wool mill, showing the looms and the trade that made the city, the mark of the town, among the old works. Another mill holds modern art.

The De Pont museum fills a former spinning mill with sculpture and light, while the great Heuvel church and the old royal palace stand in the heart of the city.

What is the history of Tilburg?

Tilburg grew from wool and weaving. Once a scatter of hamlets on the heath, it became a town of weavers who spun and wove wool in their homes and small mills, and by the last centuries it was one of the great wool towns of the Low Countries. A king made it his own.

The Dutch king William the Second loved the town, held court here, and died in it, and his palace still stands as the city hall. The mills built the modern city. Steam-driven wool mills rose across the town, and Tilburg drew workers from the countryside, spreading over the sandy plain.

The wool trade faded in the end. When cheaper cloth came from abroad, the mills closed one by one, but the town turned the old works into museums and a university, and kept its great summer funfair. The old mills still stand as museums.

Tilburg keeps its wool story in Brabant.

Where is Tilburg?

Tilburg lies in North Brabant in the south of the Netherlands, near Breda and Eindhoven. The city sits on the flat sandy plain of Brabant, among heaths, pine woods, and small canals, in the low country north of the Belgian border. Flat heath reaches around.

The level plain runs on to the south.

What is the climate of Tilburg?

Tilburg has a mild, damp maritime climate. Cool summers and soft winters cross the low country, and rain falls in every season off the North Sea, with grey skies common through the year. Mist settles over the heaths at dawn.

The damp air stays cool most days.

How do you get to Tilburg?

Tilburg lies in North Brabant between Breda and Eindhoven. Frequent trains and the motorway run to it from Rotterdam, Breda, and Eindhoven, and roads cross the flat country in every direction. Buses reach the Brabant towns around.

Most arrive by train from the west.