Brabantse Heuvel Fontein and Sint Jozefkirk, Tilburg.
Typical house style, Tilburg August 2016
[from FB post: August 17, 2016]
When what you studied a long time ago makes sense:
The Treaty of Westphalia.
Brabant ... the home of the Flemish Renaissance. It was divided between the Protestant Netherlands and Catholic Spain (that part became Belgium). So "North Brabant" became a region of the Netherlands that was Roman Catholic in a staunchly Protestant country. So??
If you live in Dutch Brabant, then the nice parts of your city were built about 500 years ago. If they were destroyed in WWII, tough shit. If you have been in "Holland" and then come to Brabant, you would think you are are in another country. Brabant is just not as nice.
And that is all because of the Treaty of Westphalia. Something from history long long ago....
Perhaps I am overly harsh on the Dutch, but they are frequently self-righteous travelers worldwide (and they are a well-traveled people). It took me an overly long time in my travels to visit the Netherlands, but when I finally did, I loved the place (less so the people). I even visited twice. I want the future of the planet to look like the Netherlands. Everything works, everything is easy, and everyone seems content with their lot - except maybe if you live in North Brabant.
I stayed in Tilberg to travel around that region even though I was leaving from neighboring
Eindhoven on a cheap Ryanair flight. Research showed Eindhoven did not have an ACCOR hotel near the train station in my budget (those were the days I was still collecting hotel points). After the glorious "rest of the Netherlands", Tilberg came as a shock. Even the hotel staff laughed and told me that there was really nothing to see there. Ditto for Eindhoven (another reason I didn't stay there) - I only ever visited the airport. The regional capital "Den Bosch" was lovely, but the rest of the cities of North Brabant were unremarkable, somewhat ragged, and simply put, "not very Dutch". Why? Mostly they had not been rebuilt to their original condition after World War II.
As per my post above, a little research showed that the state of "Brabant" was cleft in two by the Treaty of Westphalia leaving a bunch of Catholics stranded in "North Brabant" in a very Protestant Netherlands
The Peace of Westphalia is the collective name for two peace treaties signed in October 1648 in the Westphalian cities of Osnabrück and Münster. They ended the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) and Eighty Years' War (1568–1648), and brought peace to the Holy Roman Empire, closing a calamitous period of European history that killed approximately eight million people. The Holy Roman Emperor (Ferdinand III), the Spanish Empire, the kingdoms of France and Sweden, the United Provinces (Netherlands), and their respective allies among the princes of the Holy Roman Empire participated in these treaties.
(Wikipedia)
Eight million people died in religious wars in Europe over minor religious dogma. I still can't get my head around that. The Treaty of Westphalia was urgently needed and, as with most such agreements, must have been messy in the details. From this no doubt came North and South Brabant.
I had just traveled all over the Netherlands and each city was more amazing than the last. Tilberg and Eindhoven were like unloved stepchildren, uncomfortably accommodated in the southeastern corner of the country. I never made it to Breda, another large city in North Brabant, but I assumed it was not worth visiting based on googling "things to do in Breda" (not much). Only the regional capital 's-Hertogenbosch was "beautiful" in a way the rest of the country was.
Was it centuries old animosity that lived on as old habit in the very secular Netherlands? I found it too much of a coincidence that the least developed part of the country just happened to be majority Roman Catholic - or at least used to be? The Dutch over all are some of the most secular residents of the EU, but maybe the echoes of the past continue to influence people in ways they think they have long abandoned.
Anyway, Tilberg, Netherlands - I am so sorry, but other than some excellent, local made cloister beer, you were a final, surprisingly discordant note upon leaving the "oh so perfect" Netherlands.
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