Art on the North Sea Coast

Art on the North Sea Coast

Oostende, Belgium

During our stay in Brugge, we made a day trip out to the coastal town of Oostende (Ostend in English). We didn’t know much about this harbour city, but were happy to wander about aimlessly. At the tourist office we discovered that Oostende has a thriving street art scene. We grabbed a map and went on our own self-guided tour of some of the art on the North Sea coast.

We only saw a small sampling of the murals and installations, but what we did see was quite impressive. Huge three- to four-storey tall murals, different artistic techniques, and impressive use of colour and detail gave life to the streets on an otherwise gloomy day.

Oostende is a coastal town and so we made sure to check out the beach as well. Here we found even more art installations. One of them was a sand art exhibition! Though there wasn’t any public access, we were able to peak through the fence at some of the impressive sculptures. I can only imagine how impressive it’ll be once completed!

Aside from checking out the art in Oostende, we enjoyed watching the locks in action as a sail boat cruised through the harbour. We also visited the dramatic cathedral as well as the beach front.

Den Haag, The Netherlands

After Brugge, we entered our third country – the Netherlands! Our first stop was Den Haag (The Hague). I’ll be writing more about our city visit soon, but we continued our tour of art on the North Sea Coast here as well. It must be the season for sand sculptures, because we saw another festival in The Hague as well! The World Championship of Sand Sculpting held its once-every-three-years competition in The Hague & we eagerly checked it out!

This time we were able to get up close and personal with the sculptures (and the sculptors!). The amount of detail in these works of art is beyond impressive. It was exciting to see the sculptors create such beauty out of these giant piles of sand.

Scheveningen, The Netherlands

Don’t even ask me how to pronounce the name of this charming city on the coast. It involves a lot of back-of-the-throat gag-like sounds that this Canadian-accented gal just can’t grasp. Our CS host in The Hague took us (via bicycle of course!) to Scheveningen one day. The weather was glorious and we enjoyed touring the boardwalk, the pier, and the nearby sand dunes. We also admired some art installations here as well! The most notable was the Lilliput collection. Cute, simple statues both large and small partaking in silly activities along the boardwalk.

Though Mac and I aren’t huge art-buffs so to speak, we really enjoyed seeing all of this art on the North Sea coast. I think the fact that what we saw was outdoors made it so much more accessible and enjoyable. For anyone visiting the areas near the North Sea, I’d highly recommend spending a day on the coast. You might be surprised at what you stumble upon!

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