Get a breath of fresh air around Castricum and Beverwijk

North Holland has many faces. You will find old towns with estates, extensive dune areas and vast polders that are intersected by waterways. On this route you will experience all this beauty in the area around Heemskerk.

North Holland Dune Reserve
Soon after boarding you drive into the North Holland Dune Reserve. At one of the entrances you will find a ticket machine where you can easily buy a day ticket for the reserve. You can cycle here in the shelter of the former fishing village of Wijk aan Zee. This village has never had its own port. The fishing boats were simply pulled onto the beach. When fishermen started using larger ships in the course of the nineteenth century, Wijk aan Zee lost the competition with villages that did have a port.

Akerendam estate
Just below Beverwijk you drive past Akerendam. This estate was founded in the seventeenth century by an Amsterdam merchant and shipbuilder, Jan Bicker. The merchant used the estate as a summer residence. Like many of his wealthy fellow citizens, Bicker exchanged the smelly city for clean, quiet nature in the warm summer months. In the mid-eighteenth century, the country house was renovated in the French style of Louis XI. From 1916, the country house was used for housing and nursing old ladies. This lasted until the 1970s. Then the function of the estate became redundant because service apartments had been built next to Akerendam.