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 Eupedia Top > Belgium Guide Top > Province of West Flanders > the Belgian seaside |
 The Belgian coast : from De Panne to Knokke
Belgium has only 70km of coast on the North Sea, but the Belgians haven't underestimated its value. Real estate plays big here, and many well-to-do Belgians have a second house or an appartment somewhere near one of the Belgium's fine whitesand beaches. One peculiarity of the Belgian coast is the abundance of high-rise buildings, which makes one feel more like in Tokyo than in the Benelux. Another noteworthy point is the number of casinos. Yet another is the tramway line that connects all the towns from De Panne (to the southwest) to Knokke-Heist (to the northeast). It is actually the longest tramway line in the world. Ostend
The main and only real city on the coast is Ostend (Oostende in Dutch, literally "East End"), with a population of 70,000. Directly linked to Brussels by train, this was King Leolpold II's great project; making one of Europe's trendiest seaside resort. In its late 19th century heydays, Ostend rivaled with Monaco, Brighton or Deauville, and was the playground of the aristocracy. At a time, it called itself the "Queen of Belgian beaches". The town was first mentioned as a fishing village about 1000 years ago. It was already a port of some importance when it joined the Revolt of the Netherlands in 1601 and resisted a 3-year siege against the Spaniards (finally to be taken). Ostend then set up its own colonial company, with trading posts in Africa and India. After Waterloo, the Brits were the first to bathe here, and Queen Victoria herself crossed the Channel to rest in Ostend in 1834. The two world wars gave a hard blow to Ostend. The old casino was destroyed by the Nazi. After WWII, abusive property development left scars to the city's harmonious Belle Epoque architecture. Today, Ostend has mostly lost the charms of its past glory, but is still worth to come for its nightlife and museums. Paintor James Ensor lived in Ostend from 1917 to his death in 1949, and his house can still be visited. If you are into Belgian paintings, don't miss the Museum of Modern Art, dedicated to 20th-century Belgian painters, and the Museum of Fine Arts, which possess a lot of works by Ensor, among others. Let's also note the Museum of Folklore, and the Mercator, a ship that operated between 1932 and 1960 and is now moored in Ostend.
De HaanA handsome little town 12km north of Ostend. Its beach is small, but it boasts many cottage-style houses with thatched roofs. Albert Einstein stayed here once... De Haan means "the cock/rooster".BlankenbergCrowded beach resort with plenty of concrete apartment blocks. It has an English-style pier - perpendicular to the beach.ZeebruggeLiterally "Sea Bruges". It is the new port of Bruges, which had been cut off the coast after the natural Zwin canal silted in the 15th century. It was built between 1895 and 1907 and is still expanding. By no means a beach, Zeebrugge is a huge artificial harbour with petrol tankers and ferries to Felixtowne and Kingston-upon-Hull in England. It is also a fishing harbour with a fish market.Knokke-HeistThe most bourgeois and show-off town of the coast, Knokke-Heist is in fact made of 5 villages : Heist, Duibergen, Albert-Plage, Knokke and finally Het Zoute next to the Dutch border. The nearest from the border, the most upmarket. Actually, only the latter has more to offer than the usual concrete apartments blocks along the beach.Het Zoute (Le Zoute in French) is where the country's upper class and the jet set buy their beach residence, meet, relax and party. It has been dubbed "Brussels Beach", due to the high density of well-heeled Brusselers. Real estate prices there are reputedly the highest in Belgium, sometimes reaching 20,000 euro per square metre for an apartment.
NieuwpoortCompletely destroyed during WWI, Nieuwpoort (Nieuport in French) is a fishing village renowed for its seafood. This is where the German invasion was brought to a halt, thanks to the flooding of the plain between the sea and the River Ijzer (see Ypres). The beach itself is about 2km south of the fishing village. It has nicer and more modern apartments than most other towns, and nice traditional white houses with orange title roofs.De Panne & KoksijdeJust across the border from France, De Panne (or La Panne in French) it is a beach favoured by French tourists from Lille. In fact, French is more spoken than Dutch here. The long beach is lined with rather unappealing concrete apartments, but there are plenty of shops and restaurants in the backstreets, which distinguishes it from other beaches before Ostend.De Panne is where King Leopold I first set foot on Belgian soil in 1831, and a monument was raised in his honour. It is also where King Albert I set the headquarters of the Belgian Army and his government during the First World War. In 1940, it is between De Panne and Dunkerke (across the border) that the British troops retreated from the Nazi advance into the Benelux and France. There is almost no separation between the villages of De Panne and Koksijde (Coxyde in French). This latter is nicer, with more detached houses, but less shops. How to get thereVeurne is on the railway line between De Panne (5min) and Ghent (1h)By car, take the N8 from Ypres or Lille.
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