Zandvoort aan Zee

Zandvoort is where Amsterdam goes to the sea: a direct train from Centraal takes about half an hour, the station is a few hundred metres from the sand, and on a hot day the trains run full and the beach fills for kilometres. It is a nine-kilometre stretch of North Sea beach with a long line of seasonal beach clubs put up each spring and taken down each autumn, a boulevard, and dunes behind. Circuit Zandvoort, built into the dune ground in 1948 partly on wartime road works, held the Dutch Grand Prix from the 1950s to 1985 and returned to Formula 1 in 2021 after a rebuild - race weekend brings well over a hundred thousand people and the town is entirely given over to it. The beach is naturist in a marked section and there is kitesurfing at the northern end. The Kennemer dunes run behind.

What you actually see

• Amsterdam's beach - half an hour by direct train, and it fills accordingly.
• Seasonal beach clubs - put up each spring along nine kilometres of sand.
• A Formula 1 circuit - built into the dunes in 1948 and back in the calendar since 2021.
• Dunes behind - the Kennemer reserve running inland from the boulevard.

When to go

May to September. A day.

Honest expectations

Extremely crowded on hot days and the trains are packed. Race weekend fills the town and accommodation entirely. The North Sea is cold and there are rip currents - swim between the flags.

Nearby

The Amsterdamse Waterleidingduinen are south; Haarlem is inland.