Every design for Castricum

Have you ever cycled from Castricum station out to the beach, through dunes where bunkers from the Atlantic Wall still lie hidden under the sand? That ride sums up the town. It is a seaside place in North Holland, popular for its beach and dune landscape, yet only a short train journey from Amsterdam. Down on the coast, Castricum aan Zee – once called Bakkum aan Zee – is mostly holiday homes and campsites, among them Duincamping Bakkum, the oldest campsite in the Netherlands, which began when Sophie, Princess of Albania, let a group of nature lovers pitch their tents in her dunes.

Castricum sits between the North Sea and the Lake of Alkmaar-Uitgeest, where sailors and windsurfers spend their weekends. The municipality also takes in Akersloot, Limmen, Bakkum and De Woude, and the Battle of Castricum was fought on this ground when a Franco-Dutch army beat an Anglo-Russian one. Huis van Hilde now keeps the province's archaeological finds here.

For anyone who grew up here, the map brings back the smell of the dunes, the wind on the way to the beach and the train home in the evening.