Flanders’ Seaside Surprise

Don’t worry. I had never heard of it either. It’s Belgium’s best kept secret, a beach resort considered by the cognoscenti to be one of the top in Europe. Indeed, it ranks itself with France’s Biarritz and Deauville for elegance and chic. To the American ear its name sounds anything but: Knokke is pronounced with the hard k of “knish” and Heist sounds like “haste”: k-NOCK-eh haste. Not exactly mellifluous, but everything else about Knokke-Heist is easy to take, right down to the satin-smooth sand that covers the seven miles of its wide beach.

It is the gem in the crown of more than a dozen Belgium resorts that edge 40 miles of the country’s North Sea Coast, running all the way from the Dutch border south to the French. Immensely popular with well-to-do Belgians, who make up 85% of its clientele, it receives a smattering of English, French and German visitors as well, but practically no Americans.

Though Flemish and French are spoken here, this proved no handicap to my wife and me during our stay last August, as everyone we encountered also had a good grasp of English. Should you want to see the other seaside resorts, the Kusttram (Coast Tram) connects all the towns and villages from Knokke-Heist to De Panne.

Here you can combine a beach vacation with some of the loveliest sightseeing in northern Europe. It is a 90-minute train ride from Brussels, with departures every hour. The gorgeous city of Brugge is a mere 12 miles away, and to either side are roads leading to Antwerp and Ghent, neither of which takes more than an hour or so by car. While Knokke-Heist betrays almost nothing of its fishing-village past, these other cities have medieval and renaissance cores, rich with the architecture and art of old Flanders, once one of Europe’s wealthiest, most powerful countries.

First-time visitors, my wife and I were particularly fortunate to have been lent a beautiful duplex apartment overlooking the water by our niece and nephew who live in Antwerp but maintain this place as a weekend retreat for themselves and their three young children. From their living room and bedroom terraces we could look down on the busy activity below--pedestrians, motorists and bike riders between whom waiters balancing trays of drinks picked their way from restaurants on one side of the beachfront thoroughfare to patrons seated under the striped umbrellas of the cafes on the other side.

Lifting our eyes, we could take in the cabana-lined beach itself, thronged with sunbathers and then, letting our vision roam, the Day-Glo sails of windsurfers skimming the surface of the water. Nor was this the only view we had: From our kitchen terrace at the rear of the apartment we could see across the green polder landscape all the way to Brugge, where its ancient spires pricked the sky.

As special as these accommodations were, they were not all that unusual for Knokke-Heist. Our building had several similar apartments that could be rented by vacationers. The same was true of many of the large white houses with high, red-tiled roofs and flower-filled gardens behind our apartment; not only did these have apartments to let, but also rooms. And of course there were the hotels, including Hotel La Reserve, on its own lake, Zegemeer, with a spa where the stressed and world-weary can rejuvenate by day in specially purified seawater rich in iodine, then toss it all away at night in the smoky gambling casino across the way. The casino is Belgium’s most splendid, where you can play roulette, baccarat, black jack, boule and punto y banco from 3 in the afternoon till deep into the night.

Tempting though the pampered comfort of a hotel might have been, we were happy to be on our own. We could prepare our meals or buy them ready-made, and eat them when we felt like it. A well-stocked supermarket with an excellent wine selection, a bakery around the corner and numerous gourmet shops offering traiteur (take-out food) took care of most of our needs.

That is not to say that we neglected to sample several of Knokke-Heist’s more than 200 restaurants, attracted by such Belgian specialties as waterzooi, a fish stew; butter-sauteed zeetong, or sole; shrimp croquettes made with the tiny gray shrimp of the local waters; and crisp-edged waffles. We quenched our thirst with famed Belgian beers, including some zesty local ones such as Bacchus and De Coninck. And we satisfied our sweet tooth with several of the irresistible chocolate truffles and cream-filled bonbons that lay so invitingly in the glass cases of candy shops. (Why, we kept asking ourselves, aren’t all Belgians fat?)

One of the first things my wife and I did upon arrival was go the beach. We had not expected such a merry atmosphere. The beachfront thoroughfare, the Zeedijk, was thronged with strollers and rented vehicles driven by the pedal power of adults and children alike: four- and six-seated cuisee-tax (which some energetic families use to roam from one resort to another), three-seated tandems, mock pony carts and miniature racing cars, delivery trucks and ice cream wagons, among others.

And all along the promenade children cavorted in fenced playgrounds, some furnished with inflated equipment, the kind that encourages vigorous bouncing and springing, with the sand cushioning the inevitable falls. These public play areas lie within ear- and eyeshot of the cafes where vacationing parents can take some time off and sip a coffee or beer, knowing that their offspring are safe.

But it was on the beach that we saw boys and girls in all their creative exuberance. It is the custom at Knokke-Heist for children to make and sell flowers constructed of colorful tissue and crepe paper attached to dowel stems. No money is exchanged, however--only thumbnail-size seashells. Everywhere little gardens bloomed in the sand, with expectant proprietors sitting behind them. One budding capitalist had a sign up, “Sale. Last Day.” Other children were busy with their fathers building giant sandcastles complete with turrets, crenelated walls and water-filled moats.

Knokke-Heist happens to boast more hours of sunshine than any other place in Belgium, a fluke of sea and wind--and that is saying something in a land where weather conditions can be variable at best. And remember, in northern Europe summer evenings last longer than they do in most of the U.S., which means that darkness descends late here during June, July and August, giving you more light for your money.

Plainly, Knokke-Heist is a town that loves children. Poles along the beach are topped with brightly colored animal figures and other easy-to-spot symbols so that kids who wander off from their parents can find their way back through the crowd to home base. And should they forget their particular sign, they have only to look at the special wrist bracelets they are given, which identify their individual markers.

With our two daughters now adults, my wife and I regretted having not known about Knokke-Heist when they were young. This would have been the place to come with them--and we might even have been able to inveigle them into doing some sightseeing in the nearby cities, lured by promises of Belgian waffles, canal boat rides and horse-drawn carriages.

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Because Brugge is so close, and one of its former river ports, Damme, closer still, we could not resist spending a morning and afternoon in both, though we had been to Brugge twice in the past. (It is not a city one easily grows tired of.) The day after, we drove to Ghent, to be charmed by the gabled and stepped facades of its canal-side houses--and to be awed by Hubert and Jan van Eyck’s multi-paneled “The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb,” one of the world’s greatest paintings, a shimmer of jewel-like colors and intense religiosity, on display in the hushed silence of a semi-dark room in St. Bavo’s Cathedral.

Yet another day, we roamed the center of Antwerp to take in its diamond quarter, its magnificent cathedrals. Such fulfilling side trips did not prevent us from taking full advantage of Knokke-Heist’s own sites and pleasures. One gray morning, we went to Het Zwin, the 375-acre nature reserve that stretches from Knokke-Heist over the Belgian-Dutch border. After wandering through a park full of European bird life, we ambled across dune-bordered salt flats where wild ducks, geese and gulls filled the sky and clamored on the ground. Sloshing through shallows in our rubber boots, we reached sandbars bright with sea lavender where we could take in the scene as the sun sidled out from behind the clouds.

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To see what it feels like to be a rich Belgian, we dined that night in one of Knokke-Heist’s top restaurants, Esmeralda, and afterward ventured into the casino. Three of our four courses were lobster-based: an ethereal pink parfait, molded in a pale green gelee of cucumber essence; a tian, morsels of the shellfish in a cup-shaped mound, accompanied by chopped avocados and tomatoes over which a light gazpacho sauce had been gently spooned; and half-lobsters grilled and flamed with Ricard, an anise-based aperitif, and served with diced rosemary-sauteed potatoes. We coaxed each mouthful down with sips of a dry French white wine, then settled back for the dessert: individual chocolate mousses of the most soothing texture, each decorated with a plump blackberry and a ruby stem of currants.

With my wallet considerably lighter than when we entered the restaurant, we crossed the street to the red-carpeted casino and gave ourselves a little tour of its art treasures, including murals by the Belgian surrealists Rene Magritte and Paul Delvaux and the American painter Keith Haring. We wandered around the plush gaming room, pausing to watch the piles of chips on the green baize of the gaming tables grow or diminish with each clickety-click rotation of the wheel.

So much in Knokke-Heist comes cheap, if not free. For the amusement of visitors, the town sponsors various festivals throughout the summer season, celebrating everything from classical music and jazz to humorous photography and antique cars. One focuses on the latest newspaper and magazine cartoons from around the world. But the most spectacular has to be the August fireworks competition, held annually on the beach. Having set out chairs on the living room balcony, we had front-row seats, so to speak, when Germany lighted up the sky with the grandest display of pyrotechnics I have ever seen--explosions of color, curtains of light, squiggles of sparks, torrents of fire, all choreographed to music. Thirty thousand people had gathered on the amphitheater-like lawn beyond the building and on the promenade below to watch the spectacle, punctuating the smoke-filled air with their oohs and ahs and bursts of applause. High above the crowd, we knew we were special--we felt like a million bucks.

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GUIDEBOOK

Best Belgian Bets

Getting there: The only nonstop service L.A.-Brussels is on CityBird; round-trip fares begin at $720. Direct service (one stop, Chicago) on American Airlines. Connecting service (at least one plane change) on Northwest, KLM, Delta and Lufthansa. Lowest round-trip fares begin at $630 on a special good through Tuesday; after that, fares rise to $912.

Where to stay: A few Knokke-Heist hotels (all prices are for doubles and include breakfast, taxes and service charges):

Britannia, Elizabetlaan 85; telephone 011-32-50-621-062, fax 011-32-50-620-063; rate $100-$150.

Chalet Tinel, Elizabetlaan 83; 011-32-50-603-653, fax 011-32-50-622-657; $70-$100.

Hotel Katelijne, Kustlaan 166; tel. 011-32-50-601-216, fax 011-32-50-615-190; $100-$140.

La Reserve, Elizabetlaan 160; tel. 011-32-50-610-606, fax 011-32-50-603-706; $240-$265.

For assistance with room reservations and for more information, contact Andre Desmidt, Director of Tourism, Toerisme Knokke-Heist vzw, Zeedijk Knokke 660, B-8300 Knokke-Heist, Belgium; tel. 011-32-50-630-380, fax 011-32-50-630-390.

For more information: Belgian Tourist Office, 780 3rd Ave., Suite 1501, New York, NY 10017; tel. (212) 758-8130, fax (212) 355-7675, Internet https://www.visitbelgium.com.