Cycling and walking in Brabant
You can go on the loveliest cycling or walking trips in North Brabant. Go on a voyage of discovery through beautiful towns and villages in Brabant, or escape to the countryside. You can easily combine bustling town centres with spacious heathland or extensive woodlands. Town and countryside are always close by.
Create your own route using the route planner together with the numbered junction network, or let us inspire you. This way we’ll introduce you to the following routes where we’ll pay plenty of attention to the Brabant heritage we are so proud of.
Our Monastery Path
Walking along abbeys and monasteries
Go for a walk and get to learn about the life and work of Brabant’s monks, past and present. Ons Kloosterpad (‘Our Monastery Path’) is a 330 kilometre walking route which takes you in fifteen stages past fifty (former) monasteries and abbeys in Brabant. Beautiful walks have been marked out around some of the abbeys, such as the walking tours at Heeswijk-Dinther and Aarle-Rixtel.
The Heeswijk-Dinther Abbey Walk will show you the stunning countryside around Berne Abbey. The route takes you past places such as the St. Willibrordus Church, the Meierijsche Museumboerderij (Museum Farm), the Kersouwe Open Air Theatre and Heeswijk Castle, one of the four leading monuments in Brabant.
The Aarle-Rixtel Abbey Walk will show you the beautiful countryside around the Mission Convent of the Holy Blood in Aarle-Rixtel. You will start at the beautiful convent with its adjacent convent garden. You can look out across the fields where nuns once grew their crops. The route takes you past Gemert Monastery Castle, the St. John’s Onthoofdingskerk Church, St. George’s Chapel and the former Nazareth Convent of the Franciscan Nuns of Oirschot.
Van Gogh Cycle Route
Tread in the footsteps of Vincent van Gogh
The life and countryside of Brabant are the foundation of the works by Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890). Vincent was born, grew up and found his inspiration in North Brabant; he developed to become a painter here and it was here that he produced his first masterpiece: the Potato Eaters.
The Van Gogh Cycle Route is 435 kilometres long and is divided up into ten sections. The sections are connected to each other by Van Gogh linking routes. They will take you to places such as Nuenen, Etten-Leur, Zundert, Breda, ’s-Hertogenbosch, Tilburg and Eindhoven.
Van Gogh Walk Nuenen
Walk through the countryside of the Potato Eaters
Vincent van Gogh lived and worked in Nuenen from December 1883 to November 1885. It was here that he produced almost a quarter of his total output, and painted his first masterpiece: the ‘Potato Eaters’. You can think of Nuenen and its surroundings as an outdoor museum; Nowhere else are so many buildings, statues and landscapes that have a direct relationship with Van Gogh.
This varied 10 km walking tour follows in the footsteps of Vincent van Gogh and takes you through beautiful countryside and past Nuenen’s heritage. It includes a walk through the picturesque ‘Nuenens Broek’ nature reserve, with woods, fields, meadows, shallow pools, and follows the course of the Hooidonkse Beek brook. Further on in this walk you will pass by the old neighbourhood and village of Gerwen, where Vincent painted the St. Clemens Church.
If you want to read (even) more about Vincent’s time in Brabant, visit the Vincentre Museum, which is the starting point of this route! Van Gogh Walks in Helvoirt, Tilburg, Zundert and Etten-Leur will follow later this year.
