As a family with young kids, finding a suitable holiday each year to keep both adults and children happy is always something of a challenge. But a couple of years ago, having firstly trawled the car hire comparison sites for a good deal on a five- door hatchback, we took advice from some good friends who for the past four years had been going to Holland and booking a chalet at the Dutch Center Parcs at Zandvoort on the North Sea coast. Now, before you jump to any conclusions, let me say right away that we aren’t your classic Center Parcs sporting fanatics, and neither are our friends. No, the thing that really attracted us to Zandfoort is it’s brilliant location, only a stone’s throw away from Haarlem, and not much further from Amsterdam. And, of course, its other great attraction is its famous flatness and extensive network of cycle lanes.
I have to admit here that I hadn’t actually sat on a bicycle for some considerable time, so the idea of cycling did at first fill me with a little trepidation. But as a role model I clearly had an important job here to set a good example to my nine-year-old son who had only just learnt to propel himself on two wheels without stabilisers.
Center Parcs at Zandfoort is a perfectly good place to stay. It’s not exactly the height of luxury, but it’s certainly good enough. The chalets were clean and had all the facilities you’d expect. In fact, I think the chalets may well have been upgraded recently, judging from the latest pictures on its website. There is a good indoor swimming pool with slides, which is free to use and a decent bakery too. But our intention was to just use the place as a base from which to drive, walk and, yes, cycle.
You can hire bicycles from the centre. Being Dutch, they have a strange system of breaking; instead of using the handlebars, you have to cycle backwards. It sounds very Heath Robinson, but believe me, it works pretty well. So having parked in the car park, we ventured out on our bikes and discovered the joys of Dutch cycle ways. These are, in fact, more than just cycle ways, they are separate road systems, often with two lanes, and not always running adjacent to those used by cars. So you really do feel safe, even if, like me, you’re a bit wobbly to start with.
From the centre you can cycle along the coast for miles, and like us, park at one of the many smart cafes overlooking the beach and sit with a good book, while the children play on the beach.
Of course, when not cycling, there are the local cities to take in. Haarlem is a little gem of a place, with its intricate network of beautiful canals, stately canal houses and charming cobbled streets. And the Franz Hals Museum is a must. Then there’s Amsterdam with so many wonderful attractions. We just confined ourselves to the Vincent Van Gough museum and Anne Frank’s house, which is an incredibly moving experience.
The combination of cycling, site seeing and swimming meant that the kids didn’t moan too much about being dragged around museums when they knew that we’d soon be on our bikes, quite literally.
Alex Pearl is a freelance copywriter and author of ‘Sleeping with the Blackbirds’.
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