s-Hertogenbosch; Saturday, 15 August, 2026

Overnight a cold front had passed over this part of Europe, ensuring that the temperatures would be quite a bit lower, along with the humidity, though it did also bring with it some light showers which I sat out in my room after breakfast before heading back into town.

Of course, the showers had lulled me into a false sense of security and as I was about 2 minutes’ walk from the cathedral the skies decided to open up and drop a really heavy shower, thankfully I was able to quickly dive into a café, though it did mean I was forced to sit out the 10 minutes of rain with a coffee and a stroopwafel.

With the last of the rain cleared I headed back over to the Cathedral and spent quite a bit of time looking around that, before walking the short distance back to the Markt and the Huis Van Bosch, the original home and studio of Jheronimus where he lived and worked for most of his life. The building went through many varied used in the more than 500 years since his death but following the collapse of a neighbouring building in the early 2000s the opportunity was taken to restore the building, as much as possible, to how it would have looked when Bosch was working here, with the cellars actually dating back to before the house.

You walk around the house on a video guided tour that tells you a lot about the history of the city at the time, and of the man himself, giving you a better understanding of why his paintings are at times quite so weird and in places disturbing. From the Huis Van Bosch the logical next step was to walk back past the Cathedral and head over to the Jheronimus Bosch Art Center, housed in a converted church that has life size reproductions of most of his main works (the originals are mostly in the Prado museum in Madrid as one of the Kings of Spain who ruled over the Spanish Netherlands took a liking to Bosch’s work and had many of them shipped to his home).

Having taken in the art I had just enough time to quickly grab a bite to eat before heading down to the Dommel river to pick up an afternoon river cruise. Whilst the city offers many small boat cruises through the canals, which I’d booked for the following day, there is only one tour that actually heads out along the city’s rivers, heading out of town towards where the rivers of the city merge into the Meuse, accompanied by a bar and kitchen. The latter wasn’t needed, but a nice Radler whilst sailing down the river in the sun is never to be missed.

The two-hour tour ended up back in the same place we departed from close to the Wilhelminabrug so after a little wander around this area I headed back over to the hotel to freshen up, grab a bite to eat and then head back out a little later for an evening wander through the city at sunset.

I spent about 2 hours walking around the heart of the old town through the golden hour and on into the night, with the centre of the city being surprisingly quiet for a Saturday evening, though it was mid-August so it may only have been tourists and the few locals who hadn’t been able to book vacations around.

I eventually headed back from the city centre to my hotel room for another good night’s sleep in the blissfully cold room.