This is not a list of everything. It’s a short field guide to the places we actually go: the village, the dunes, the sea, and the quiet routes between them. Distances are from the front door.
Bergen has drawn painters and writers for over a century, and it shows: galleries between the trees, the Kranenburgh art museum in its sculpture garden, and a village centre that takes eating and drinking seriously. Go for morning coffee, stay for the evening.
Raika’s tip: The Ruïnekerk square is the centre of village life: concerts in summer, lights in winter.
The highest and widest dunes in the Netherlands: white sand, pine forest and heather that turns purple in late summer. Endless marked routes for walking, running and mountain biking, and hardly anyone on them before ten.
Raika’s tip: Rent mountain bikes and ride the MTB loop through the dunes, or walk out early for the mist.
A 51-metre wall of sand rising straight out of the village of Schoorl. Children (and most adults) run up and roll down until their shoes are full. Pancakes afterwards in the village: the correct order of operations.
A small, unhurried seaside village with a wide, clean beach and a handful of pavilions for coffee, lunch or a sundowner. The cycle route there runs straight through the dune reserve; the ride is half the point.
Raika’s tip: Go for the last hour of daylight: the sun sets into the sea, and the ride home under a pink sky is unforgettable.
The meadows in front of the guesthouse are working polder: cows in summer, geese in winter, herons year-round. Walk the dyke paths straight from the door, past reed-lined ditches and little windpumps, and be back before breakfast.
Canals, courtyards and the famous Friday-morning cheese market (April to September). Big enough for a rainy day, small enough to see on foot.
Four ways to leave the guesthouse, no car keys required.
Through the village, into the dune reserve, and downhill to the beach at Bergen aan Zee. Swim, eat, watch the light go, then roll home through the dark dunes.
Coffee and fresh bread in the village, a gallery or two, the Kranenburgh sculpture garden, and back before the day decides what it wants to be.
Start at the Klimduin, climb into the dunes and pick a loop through pine forest and heather fields. In August the hills turn purple; in winter you’ll have them to yourself.
Dyke paths, ditches, windpumps, cows. Flat, quiet and completely restorative: the landscape you’ve been looking at from the sofa, from the inside.
Lambs in the polder, the garden waking up, and the first terrace mornings wrapped in a blanket.
Beach evenings at Bergen aan Zee, doors open until midnight, swallows over the meadows.
Purple heather fading to bronze, mushroom walks in the Bergerbos, the first fires of the season in the village.
Frost on the fields, empty dunes, long dinners behind eight metres of glass while the weather performs outside.
