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Carnaval takes place in the 4 days preceding the Christian season of Lent (around February). During this period Breda becomes Kielegat, loud music is played in the city centre and people wear costumes while consuming excessive amount of alcohol. It is obviously more fun on the first day than the last.
Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk
Built in the Brabantine Gothic style in the 15th and 16th centuries, the church dedicated to Our Lady, as Virgin Mary is most often referred to in the Netherlands, boasts a tower of almost 100 m and one of the largest organs in the country. Inside you will find the Prinsenkapel, where members of the Orange-Nassau family had been buried until the city of Breda fell to the Spanish.
Oude Stadhuis
Compared to the large church, the city hall standing at its back in a wall of buildings lining up the elongated Grote Markt is unassuming at best. Apart from being a neat example of Dutch 18th-century architecture, quite ascetic compared to the raging rococo found in many other countries at that time. The building is now a historic monument and home to several works of art as well as tourist information, but the actual municipal facilities have been moved to a modern building on Claudius Prinsenlaan.
The castle originates in the 14th century and was substantially renewed in Renaissance style around 1540. Unfortunately, the castle is not available for visitors as it is home to the Military Academy since 1826, but of course it can still be admired from the outside.
Much of the historic peace and tranquillity remains in this former Béguinage. Although no beguines remain, the small houses around the charming courtyard are still inhabited by single ladies. There's a herb garden and a small museum at nr. 29.
St. Anthony of Padua Cathedral
Nestled in a side street incidentally named after Saint John, the cathedral church of the long-standing diocese of Breda is much less imposing than the Grote Kerk, but quite unique in that it is a 19th-century creation built in neoclassical style, both inside and out, which is a relative rarity as far as cathedrals go, especially in the Netherlands.
A panopticon-style prison, whose name refers to the cupola topping the round building with prison cells stacked in rounds on the outside walls around a large covered courtyard. It is this prison that held the "Breda four" – the only German prisoners of war who served their sentences after the Second World War in the Netherlands for war crimes committed. The prison building now houses Ukrainian refugees, and is not open for sightseeing.