Summer is up and cities across Europe have planted palm trees and trucked in tons of sand to urban riverfronts to create the feeling of a lazy day at the shore. Urban beaches are a hit and Momondo guides you to our favourites.
AMSTERDAM
Happy beach is what they call Blijberg, the first real city beach in Amsterdam open since the summer of 2003. Maybe it doesn't have the sophisticated flair of Paris Plage or the glamour of a historical site as the Monbijou strandbar in Berlin, but at least you can swim here in the outstretched Ijsselmeer. Also different to a city beach in the classical manner Blijburg stays open all year.
Now moved to the new location some 400 meters further away from the original one, it’s not less cheerful but what is going to happen after 2009 to this wonderful beach pavilion nobody knows for sure. Locals and frequent beachgoers started a filmproject to force the municipality to make Blijburg stay but in a small city with big housing problems building grounds are rare... therefore you better go there before it’s too late!
Photo by ElCabron
Now that summer is slowly coming to an end and everybody, who’s not blessed to live in a southern country, is cherishing the last sunrays Blijburg is the perfect place to spend a sunny day. By now, all the noisy kids will be back at school and their desperate mums will be transformed into nice city girls again, so you can fully enjoy the relaxed mood which reigns here. But even unsunny days will have their charm. I like the feeling of a beach in the old fashioned way: not too tidy, wind and sails everywhere and a far reaching horizon.
Photo by BasL
Fridays and Saturdays are traditionally party nights with different kinds of music and bands; for instance the Generations of Love Festival. On Sundays, breakfast is accompanied with live classical piano music and from 17.00 - and if you bring your instrument, you can join the Blijburg jam. The Kitchen mostly works with organic products and besides breakfast and finger food, you will find national golden oldies like a bammetje hagelslag or drie in de pan which I last ate when I was a kid.
Blijburg aan Zee; Bert Haanstrakade 2004; Amsterdam
GO FURTHER:
Urban Beaching in Amsterdam
The Great Dutch Beach Rivalry: Bloemdal vs. Zandvoort