Helmond Travel Guide

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Enjoy fresh seasonal country food here at Brandevoorse Hoeve. We came with a group, stocked up on fresh asparagus and aromatic strawberries (see Shopping Tip).
Then sat down for a lovely lunch with products from the farm. Wine, beer and beverages too, of course :-)

Welkom bij Muziekcafé Helmond!
Het Muziekcafé is gelegen in het hartje van Helmond. Het is een café waar het fenomeen muziek een grote rol speelt. Drukke avonden kunnen dan ook omschreven worden als een bijeenkomst van muziekliefhebbers. Maar deze omschrijving is natuurlijk niet volledig. De mensen komen uiteraard voor de muziek, maar vooral voor de gezelligheid en gelukkig hebben we ook nog verstand van een goed glas bier. Regelmatig zijn er leuke en interessante live bands aanwezig wat meestal zorgt voor een lekkere avond. Wanneer er geen bands spelen zijn er nog volop andere activiteiten in het café. Zo hebben we een eigen dartteam en organiseren we regelmatig thema-avonden zoals een Elvis Night, de Havanna Soul Club enz.

Dress Code: No dress-code

Do visit this gem for the culinary inclined!

This is a farm slash local produce/ice cream slash restaurant just outside Helmond.

I bought white asparagus here, which is the main crop during May/June. Along with fresh strawberries. White asparagus are a delicacy during season and are grown mostly in the provinces Zeeland, Limburg and Noord-Brabant.

When I came home, I cooked the asparagus traditionally with boiled potatoes, hardboiled eggs, boiled ham and lots of melted butter (or Hollandaise sauce). I've eaten quite a lot asparagus in my life but these were absolutely the most delicious I had ever eaten.

What to buy: Asparagus, strawberries, dairy ice cream and lots of other local produce.

What to pay: Asparagus is an expensive vegetable. You can choose from different qualities (the colour and thickness determine price mostly). About 8 euro per kilo.

Once again, another look at these odd houses..
BTW: Go to Den Bosh for houses that look like space stations..

In Helmond we have a nice park, called the Warande, there in the forests is a midget golf playground, it is not that big, but it should be renewed by now, and midgetgolf is fun, so why not give it a go!

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Favorite thing: After having seen several windmills here in Holland we were happily pleased to see that this one was much better preserved.
This is what I found at (http://www.windmillworld.com/windmills/history.htm)
Post mills are so named because of the large upright post on which the mill's main structure (the "body" or "buck") is balanced. By mounting the body this way, the mill is able to rotate to face the (variable) wind direction.
To maintain the upright post, a structure consisting of horizontal crosstrees, and angled quarterbars is used. By far the most common arrangement was 2 cross bars at right angles to each other under the base of the post, together with 4 quarterbars. Occasionally however other arrangements did occur, such as 3 crosstrees, and consequently 6 quarterbars.

Initially the crosstrees would have rested directly on the ground, (or indeed were buried in the ground for extra stability) but since this makes them very succeptible to rotting, the crosstrees were soon being placed on brick piers, to raise them off the ground.

The body of the mill housed all the milling machinery - a large brake wheel on the same shaft as the sails (the "windshaft") transferred power to a smaller gear at right angles to it, called the wallower. The wallower shared a vertical shaft with the great spur wheel, and from this smaller wheel a "stone nut" was used to drive the millstone. As larger mill bodies were constructed, additional pairs of stones could be driven, by taking further power taps, each using an extra "stone nut" off the great spur wheel. In order to apply some level of control to the mill, the brake wheel could be slowed using a large wooden friction brake around its outer edge.