Discover Tilburg- a One Day Trip

Summer is around the corner, exams are looming in the distance, and you wish you could spend a day away, pretending you don’t have to study… How about Tilburg?

I will walk you through the amazing day I had in Tilburg, so you’ll be well prepared for an awesome itinerary. The order in the list is the order in which I went through the places, so you could easily follow it through. Have fun!

Train time!

Early in the morning, we arrived at Tilburg after a nice 1:20-hour train ride. We got up and started heading towards city-center, looking for breakfast .

Pig & Rye

This bakery is a five-minute walk from the train station and was definitely worth a visit. Here you can enjoy breakfast/ brunch/ lunch made from freshly baked sourdough bread. But the food is not what you should come for, well, not only. The interior design of this hidden place immediately drew my attention. On each table were those big plant pots with plastic animals (one had a dinosaur next to a volcano-looking cactus!), which I LOVED. The walls were decorated with 90’s music posters, mostly, and they had my favorite thing to find in cafes- couches. All in all, great experience. 10/10.

Pig & Rye

De Refter

On the opposite side of the street from Pig & Rye, you can find a very awesome antique store whose name took me way too long to find, but you should definitely check it out! The prices are much lower than you’d expect, and they have everything ranging from Chinese cutlery all the way to antique books (with some jewelry, statues, and pictures in the middle).

Velerlei Concept store

This concept store is a 3-minute walk from Pig&Rye in the direction of the city center (opposite the train station), and it’s heaven. Seriously.
Gathered in this hipster-decorated place are over 20 different shops selling handmade jewelry, or design clothes, antique furniture, 2.50-euro books (I said it was heaven, didn’t I?), coffee, and basically every souvenir or gift you could think of. Even if you don’t end up buying anything, it’s really cool to just check the place out.

Frozi Yogi

Even though we just had brunch in Pig&Rye, we couldn’t resist having a Fro-Yo on that nice sunny Saturday. And you should, too! This place has a make-your-own Fro-Yo bar, where you pay at the end by the weight of your delicious dessert. Not only that, but the yogurt is really good, too. Don’t skip this!

Heikese Kerk

Take your Fro-Yo on a walk and check out the local church. Are you there already? It’s nice, right? Well, now that you’ve seen it you can turn around and go right where you came from. The next stop requires a nice long walk…

De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art

I hope that by now, for those of you that have been reading my other articles, it’s clear that I’m a huge nerd. If not then, well, now you know. So naturally, I couldn’t resist a visit to the contemporary art museum, especially not after reading that it’s at an old factory. We walked back towards the train station, went through, and passed the nice fountains that tempt you to just jump in.
Don’t lie, I know you wanted to, too.

On the way, we passed this unexpected wagon-turned-café, which I immediately feel in love with, and we promised to return there after the museum. The museum itself was beautiful, more the building than the art, in our case. Entrance was only 7.50, so it turned out to be a pocket-friendly activity.

Eetbar De Wagon

After the museum we returned, victorious, to the wagon-café, where I confidently confused the waitress by ordering a cold coffee (why is that confusing? I don’t know. She wasn’t sure whether they “had it”. Go figure). We set in the sun, enjoying the cold coffee they ended up (indeed) having. The service, despite the initial confusion, was great, and so was the coffee. Even though we didn’t order any food, the menu had some tempting options, and our neighboring tables made some good choices, so don’t be scared to try anything.

Back Home

Somehow tired, but very content, we went on the train back to Leiden, heading home. All in all, a day well spent…

~~ This is all from me (at least for this time). Have you been to Tilburg? Did I miss something absolutely AMAZING? Got any other cities to recommend? let me know! as usual, your comments make my day, so comment away!