Castle, Breda

once a year the KMA (royal military academy) open it's door for public.
The KMA is situated at the Breda castle build in 1350, actually it was build at the 12th century as a fortress, later on Jan van Polanen a noblemen bought the fortress and made a strong castle of it with a canal and 4 corner towers.
Jan's grandchild married Engelbrecht van Nassau in 1403 and this way the castle came in hands of this important Nassau family.
Willem van Nassau (Willem Orange) also lived at this castle.

People where dressed as knights, prince, king and queen.
Guides told us the most importent things there is to know about the castle

This is one of the two towers left out of the original four towers, that used to be here.
This tower is called the pigeon tower, see it as a "post office" during war time!!
This is for me a very special picture cause today I was allowed to see the tower on this side, normaly we passed the tower at the front side, a part of "Spanjaardsgat"

Our guide a real "Bredanaar" (person who lived all his live in Breda) here in the picture, told us that this is the original castle door, in the old days it has two stairs beside each other, because when the bishop and the king went upstairs together there could be a large discussion about who let who go first, to avoid this discussion they build two stairs next to each other :-)
At the colour of the stones you can see what is old and what is build later on. Unfortunately they also build a second floor at the castle so the beautiful roof tiles are also gone.

underneath this tower the Katholic chapel is hiden, cadets from the KMA are allowed to marry in this small chapel, or Baptist their children.
To me it looked a very romantic place to get married, have to find me a cadet here :-)
Underneath the other tower is the Protestant chapel

This is the only ornament left. You have to imagne that in the old days every two pillars had on the top of the pillar such an ornament , it must have looked beautiful it's sad that during the renovation of the castle so many beautiful details where destroyed.

The Breda Castle! Yes, we've got one. Parts of the castle go back to before the Spanish occupation. There are famous stories about this castle and how it has been conquered by the Spanish and reclaimed by the Dutch many times. The most famous one is about the 'Turfschip'. A trojan horse kind of trick. A group of Dutch soldiers were smuggled into the castle, hidden inside a ship, and reclaimed the castle. The beautiful scenery around it is worth watching.

The inner court of the castle suprised us with it's Spanish influence.
Willem van Oranje(Nassau) third wife Mencia de Mendoza was Spanish, that explain the Spanish look of the square.

Nowedays this room is what the military calls it the "fun room"the military are able to sit, drink and chat together here, I think this room has something royale