SCHEVENINGEN
ON THE BEACH, SCHEVENINGEN
It might be Brighton or Margate, and, except for the swarm of hooded beach chairs, it might be Coney Island, this popular seaside resort of Holland. Most of the features familiar to those who frequent the sea coast resorts of other lands are to be found at Scheveningen. There is the wide, gradually shelving beach, ceaselessly washed by the rolling surf, crowded with people of all ages and stations, bobbing in the water, frolicking on the beach, or sedately seated in the shaded chairs. Back on the beach runs the long line of hotels and cottages that we find at all great ocean resorts. The pleasure of playing on the seashore is much the same wherever humanity is found, and no matter what the locality may be the pleasure in all places finds pretty much the same forms of expression.
Scheveningen (shay´-ven-ing-en) began its life as a fishing village away back in 1400. It is situated about three miles from The Hague, and has been a bathing resort since 1815, growing in popularity and population until now the annual number of visitors is about 40,000, chiefly Dutch and German, but including also many Britons and Americans. The season runs from the first of June to the end of September, and, just as in the case of other summer resorts, its activities are at their height about the first of August.
Aside from its many attractions as a summer resort, Scheveningen has some historic interest. It was from there that Charles II set sail when he returned to England to assume the crown at the time of the Restoration. This was in 1660. Thirteen years later that sturdy naval hero Admiral de Ruyter engaged in a sea battle off Scheveningen, and there defeated the combined forces of France and England.