This is the Belgian coastline, unfortunately, the once beautiful beach promenade with old mansions was sacrificed to tourism. Promoters bought the large houses from people at interesting prices, demolished them and built these high-rise buildings with many apartments to accommodate as many holidaymakers as possible. Which means that the beaches are completely overcrowded when the weather is nice.
The residents were pushed away from the beach and suddenly found themselves behind the high-rise buildings, which prevented them from having any view of the sea. This happened in the 50/60. Today they build nicer buildings, especially not that high, but unfortunately too late, the Belgian coast is really ugly.
But that doesn't matter, as soon as the weather is nice everybody rushes to the sea, with the result that sometimes it takes up to 4 h for a little more then 100 km, instead of a little more than 1 hour normally.
If you have the good idea to take the train, it's so packed that people are sitting in the toilets and in every corner possible. Pray that you don't have to go to the "rest"room ! Sometimes the train company puts more trains for the coast, but still not enough.
I noticed that it takes me less time going to the English sea. I take the Eurostar (train under the sea) which in 2 h takes me to London and from there I am quickly at the sea and it's much nicer as the coastline with its old houses hasn't changed.
What happens to these ginormous blocks of flats when the tourist season is over? Are they empty for half the year?
ReplyDeleteI thought Australia did very well at ugly high rises on beaches, but Belgium does it better. I will be interested to read your reply to Hels.
ReplyDeleteI would love to be at the beach right now!
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