Bloemendaal aan Zee is the small beach settlement at the western end of the municipality — a single street of restaurants, surf shops, and rental cabins running down to the wide North Sea beach. From late spring to early autumn the beach itself is transformed by a row of strandtenten: temporary pavilion-restaurants that pop up on the sand, with DJs, deck chairs, cocktails, and a famously party-prone crowd.
The atmosphere shifts sharply over the year. In high summer, on a sunny weekend, the beach is wall-to-wall sunbathers and the clubs run until evening; in autumn and winter, it is one of the wildest stretches of empty Dutch coastline, suited to a long bracing walk and a hot chocolate at the only club still open. Lifeguards patrol from May to September; the swimming is bracing rather than warm.