Early summer days on the North Sea coast

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​Totally forgot to post here about the "girlfriends beach days" from two weeks ago at Wijk-aan-Zee on the Dutch Northsea cost ​... where I went together with my dear friend S. already for the fourth year.

It's become a little tradition to get the wind in our hair, our feet in the sea, and chill for hours at our favourite beach club, the Aloha. 

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​Wijk-aan-Zee is a little village to the Northeast of Amsterdam and the closest beach place to my Dutch home in Almere - it's only a 45minute drive (if not congested!).

The village behind the dunes is picturesque - but the big wide sandy beach is not totally idyllic: you have to like the industrial charme exuded by the huge Mittal metalworks rising up behind the dunes on the Southern end of the beach!

It has never troubled me and I have come to love Wijk-aan-Zee over the years. I have come alone, or with the husband (just for the day in the winter for a good beach walk and hot tea) or with my son and the grandkids. Even though it is so close to home I prefer to stay overnight - staying put turns it into a real mini-vacation. We have stayed in hotels there and have rented holiday homes.
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This time i had opted for a "holiday home" which consisted of a former garage turned into the most lovely little apartment with livingroom, bedroom, great bathroom and fully equipped kitchen. It was booked via AirBnB and our hostess Ineke really did everything to make us feel at home in her spic and span little rental.

While the first day was extraordinarily windy (see the huge number of kitesurfers in the above collage), the other two days were very sunny and warm.

We "baked" at the Aloha beach club lounge and ate great food, returned wind-blown back to our cute little house and set out again for a sunset dinner at our other favourite the SunSeaBar. Good food and even better view of the sunset:

I can't wait for the next occasion to get back to the beach! Missing "my" WIjk-aan-Zee already ...