Living in Breda, the Netherlands

My Erasmus experience took place during the 2010/2011 course. I went to Breda (the Netherlands), I studied at the NHTV (University of Applied Science).

This experience started in August 2010. My home university is the “Universitat Politécnica de València”.

Firstly, I wanted to say a bit about the city, which I fell in love with at first sight. Breda is a small city, although it has around 200, 000 inhabitants and it expands in many ways, usually student life is around the centre, which, being accustomed to large Spanish cities, does not seem very big.

However, it has everything you need: all kinds of clothes shops, electronics shops, an Apple store, a lot of shoe shops, bars, pubs, cafés, etc. Breda is a very lovely city that has a lot of charm, it's almost reminiscent of some cities in the north of Spain (regarding the weather and the atmosphere, although I don't mean to say that they're equal).

There are a lot of Erasmus students here, almost all young people here are students and there is a lot of night life, the city centre is always full, you can go out any week day, but the best days for students are Wednesdays and Thursdays... although on Fridays and Saturdays, you can hardly get in because of how many people there are and they're not just students.

I don't know about the other students apart from my own, the NHTV, it's an international university so there are a lot of students from everywhere and from all over the world who speak to each other in English, they teach the classes in English, so is all of the information and everything.

As for the everyday life (supermarket, instruction, banks... ) everyone speaks really good English, although they speak Dutch amongst themselves (maybe the really old people don't speak English), but pretty much everyone can speak English.

Breda is a city with very good plane connection. You have three different airports you can get to by train, Eindhoven (40 min), Brussels (1. 20 min) and Amsterdam (1h 10 min). Breda has a train station with connections to a lot of places.

Regarding tourism, I also think that Breda is a good option, since you can visit a lot of places in Belgium, Holland and Germany. I recommend Ghent, Bruges, Brussels, Volendam, Marken, Amsterdam, Kinderdijk (the iconic windmills), Cologne, Achen, etc. ).

Living here is pretty expensive, that's for sure. I had some issues with my flat, since I got one through the university, but (even though some people got luckier than others), if you can, I would always recommend coming here for a week in July to look for a flat in person and you get to see it before you take it. Or you can come to a verbal agreement over the Internet, but do not sign for anything until you get to see it in person. My first house was really far away from the city centre and it was very, very dirty. But now I'm in a much better place, meaning that there are a lot of good flats, almost all of them are good, but you could always be unlucky. The cost of rent there is pretty much always between 250 and 450 euros. But the majority of people here pay €300 maximum, since it's an expensive place to rent in.

You'll live your life on a bicycle here, they're very cheap (from 35 euros), they're always second hand, since no one cares what state your bike is in here. You can get everywhere by bike and the city is totally adapted to do so, and bikes always, always get priority.

Breda, despite having bad Holland weather (but don't think that it's like London, it doesn't rain every day here, only around 40% of days), it's very sunny.

Well, I don't know if I've sorted out any doubts people wanting to come here have, but I think Holland is a very good option and Breda especially. But you have to understand that the cultural differences are huge and you have to be ready to completely change your life and habits for a year.

The people, the atmosphere, the things you can do... Breda is worth coming to.