First Van Gogh National Park hiking trail

The first Van Gogh Walking Route in the Van Gogh National Park opened today at the Vincentre Museum in Nuenen. The new walking route (10 km) immerses hikers in the landscape as Vincent van Gogh once saw it. The route is the first in a series of walks that VisitBrabant Routebureau is developing in the Van Gogh National Park, which is taking shape at Brabant. Later this year Van Gogh walking routes around Helvoirt, Tilburg, Zundert and Etten-Leur will follow.

Vincent van Gogh lived in Nuenen from December 1883 to November 1885. He took many long walks there, drawing inspiration from the landscape and the hard-working population. The new walking route connects the Van Gogh heritage in the core of Nuenen directly with the landscape of Van Gogh National Park. The walking route starts at museum Vincentre in Nuenen, where the official route panel was unveiled this afternoon by Anneke Boezeman (director of direction Van Gogh NP), Heleen Huisjes (director VisitBrabant) and Frank van den Eijnden (director Van Gogh Brabant and operational director Van Gogh NP).

Walking along unpaved paths

From the center, the route leads past some special Van Gogh Monuments and across the grounds where Vincent painted his first masterpiece, "The Potato Eaters. Visitors walk mostly on unpaved paths and are taken into nature as Vincent van Gogh saw it: poplar landscapes, stream valleys, trouser woods and fields alternate. It is a varied route through Vincent's beloved farmland and the Nuenens Broek nature reserve where Brabants Landschap is committed to nature conservation.

Handy hiking map

The new walking route largely follows the walking junctions and can be recognized by the little shields with the inscription 'Van Gogh National Park' affixed to the familiar walking junction posts. A paper walking map is available at Vincentre and in VisitBrabant's webshop at webshop.visitbrabant.com.

Unpaved trails

Later this year, four more Van Gogh hiking trails will be opened in Zundert, Helvoirt, Tilburg and Etten-Leur. It is the start of a major ambition by Van Gogh National Park to create more unpaved hiking trails throughout the area. This is part of a broader program for sustainable tourism. The starting point is to make it more attractive for residents and visitors in this area to enjoy the landscape from their 'own' front door. This will spread the visiting pressure and spare popular and vulnerable natural areas. With the Van Gogh hiking trails, VisitBrabant Routebureau further expands its collection of high-quality experiential trails built around Brabant stories and themes.