Netherlands 24: Riding to the beach at Wassenaarse Slag

Being just a short 15 minute ride from Duinrell, the beach at Wassenaarse Slag is a must-visit for anyone staying at the holiday park. Certainly, when we’re there, we make sure we save any sunny days for a trip to the beach.

With that being the case, I’ve posted about our trips to Wassenaarse Slag back in 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2022. While I’m probably massively in danger of repeating myself, I’m going to cover the two rides we did to the beach in 2024, not least to share some new photos and videos.

Watch full-length video at normal speed Riding to the beach at Wassenaarse Slag

The ride to the beach at Wassenaarse Slag is something of a rite of passage for families staying at Duinrell, with many of those families hiring bikes on site during their stay. For those with smaller children, it might be the first time they’ve ridden together as a family.

First ride to the beach

One of the benefits of our kids being older, is we’re now able to head out by ourselves, while they look after themselves. So with the sun shining down on our third day at Duinrell, we left the kids there and headed out for our first ride to the beach for lunch, as just the two of us.

We set off from Duinrell along the usual route, along Storm van ‘s-Gravesandeweg, then turning left onto Katwijkseweg. At the roundabout for the N441, we carried on onto Wassenaarseslag, where the path to the beach starts.

Riding up the hill at the start of Wassenaarseslag

The path starts with a bit of a hill, which probably catches a few people from Duinrell out the first time they ride it. Especially if they’re riding one of the heavy 3-speed hire bikes they have there.

As this is the Netherlands, people are probably not expecting any hills, but there are a fair few going through the dunes to the beach. They also continue along the North Sea coast, whether you head north towards Katwijk or south towards Scheveningen.

As we’re used to riding with a bit of a crowd with mixed ages and abilities, riding by ourselves was a bit of a breeze. It wasn’t long before we made our way along the dune path and arrived at the beach, and looking for somewhere to park.

While it’s possible to drive to the beach at Wassenaarse Slag, with this being the Netherlands, huge numbers choose to cycle there, which is reflected in the number of bikes parked there.

It gets so busy with bikes now, that they have to provide additional temporary cycle parking on the path towards the beach, in addition to the extensive permanent cycle parking.

With the bikes parked, we headed down to the beach, in search of somewhere to eat. That wasn’t too difficult, given we ended up stopping at the first bar along the beach, Beachclub BAIT, which is somewhere we’ve been before.

People sat on benches, looking out to sea

With a table on the terrace overlooking the beach, we spent a lovely afternoon enjoying some fantastic food and refreshing beers in the sun, while we looked across to the sea. It was so good that we still talk about our lunch at the beach in 2024.

After a few hours, we thought it was best to get out of the sun and head back. So we set off along the dune path, on the same route we arrived. Though we didn’t head straight back, as there was time for a quick ice cream at our favourite ice cream shop Luciano’s IJssalon.

At the start of Wassenaarseslag — Riding on Katwijkseweg

Second ride to the beach

The day after our first trip to the beach, we headed back again, though with everyone in tow this time, ten of us in total. This wasn’t the biggest group we’ve had, but with a mixture of ages and abilities, it meant it was a more leisurely ride than the day before.

As before, we made our way across the dunes and arrived at a busy beach. This meant we needed to park quite far away in the temporary cycle parking, before heading down to the beach.

Arriving at the beach, after parking the bikes

We pitched up for an enjoyable afternoon messing around on the beach and in the sea, on what was another glorious sunny day. The weather had certainly brought people out, as it was busy down on the beach.