What to do in one day in Eindhoven? Personal guide 

Eindhoven is a small city compared to Amsterdam and Rotterdam, but there is a lot to see here too. That’s what I’m going to talk about in this guide.

We arrived in Eindhoven from Rotterdam by train, and it took us about an hour.

We spent a full day in Eindhoven, so I’ll share with you what we had time to see and try there.

For the night, we stayed in a private room at Hotel La Reine. It’s not a bad place to rest up before an early flight. We paid 120 euros for one night.

Cultural program

In Eindhoven, the first thing we did was visit the Van Abbe Museum (Bilderdijklaan 10), one of the most famous in the Netherlands. In 1934, local resident Henry van Abbe, a cigar manufacturer, Art Nouveau enthusiast, and collector of paintings, sold his collection to the city and founded a museum for the collection.

Here visitors will find a huge collection of works by Art Nouveau and avant-garde artists such as El Lissitzky, Picasso, Kandinsky, Marc Shagall, and Mondrian, and, of course, several provocative exhibitions of contemporary art. Installations, caricatures, a car suspended from the ceiling that you can sit in and watch TV—it’s all here. The museum itself is very interestingly designed: for art from the beginning of the century, you go down to the basement; for modern art, you go up the stairs and walk along the corridor between the glass walls.

Connoisseurs of technology should look at the Philips Museum (this brand originates here). And you can see the car of the royal family in the local Museum of mechanical engineering, DAF. This company, founded in 1928, is a global manufacturer of trucks.

In between museums and walks, you can have a good coffee in such coffee houses as DENF Coffee, Lucifer Coffee Roasters, and Zwartwit Koffie.

Walking around the city, we reached the Eindhoven University of Technology.

In general, walking around Eindhoven is a great opportunity that should be used: There are not so many tourists here, so you can enjoy the Dutch streets in relative privacy.

I hope this guide has been helpful to you. Share your favorite places in Eindhoven in the comments.

Also, read my insider’s guide to Rotterdam’s best attractions.