Basking on the beach in ... Belgium

It’s been hot in Western Europe this summer, launching an earlier than usual migration of city dwellers to the beach. People in Paris, where I live, favor Normandy and Brittany or the Cote d’Azur, so when I told friends I was going to Flanders, they looked puzzled.

I had to look at a map to confirm that Belgium has a 50-mile strip of sea coast, wedged between France and the Netherlands. The Flemish-speaking northwestern part of the country is for most of the year a windy, rainy place that only a North Sea fisherman could love. But in the summer, Belgians flock to a chain of beach resorts about 90 minutes by train from Brussels, in search of sea and sun.

That same search makes people do strange, extreme things. So even if a Flemish beach vacation sounded to me like a contradiction in terms or the punch line of a joke, I wanted to try it.

Then I discovered I didn’t need a car to get to Knokke, which, together with the towns of Heist and Duinbergen, lines an eight-mile stretch of beach near the Dutch border. In Brussels, where my sister lives, I could book a round-trip train ticket to Knokke for about $30, with a bike waiting for me at the station.

Much of western Flanders is flat, which makes it good for cycling. A network of bike paths follows the coast through resort towns and dune-covered nature preserves such as Het Zwin, just northeast of Knokke. Other trails veer inland to windmills, the medieval town of Bruges and its one-time canal port at the hamlet of Damme.

I took the train from Paris to Brussels, where I spent the night at my sister’s. Then I put a toothbrush and bathing suit in my backpack and set out for the beach. My fellow travelers on the train were four teenage girls who spent their time showing one another their beach wardrobes and several troops of Boy Scouts on a day trip into the wilds of western Belgium.

The train stopped at Ghent and Bruges, great commercial centers in the Middle Ages. As the Flemish cities grew powerful, they began to resist the king of France and forged close ties with England. In 1302, Philip IV led a massive force of French knights, on war horses and in gleaming armor, to teach the rebellious Flemish people a lesson.

But at the Battle of the Golden Spurs, as the attack came to be called, near the town of Kortrijk (Courtrai in French), the flower of French knighthood suffered a shameful defeat at the hands of untrained, ill-equipped Flemish foot soldiers.

Only when I arrived in Knokke did I discover that Flanders was celebrating the anniversary of the Battle of the Golden Spurs, a public holiday in the Flemish-speaking northern half of Belgium.

I claimed my bike at the station, then followed the smell of salt to the seafront, lined by Miami-style, high-rise apartments and beach concessions that rent cabanas, umbrellas and chaises. On a square across from the waterfront, a uniformed band was playing patriotic tunes, and people in sidewalk cafes were drinking beer for breakfast.

At the Knokke tourist office, I didn’t know how to ask for a bike map in Flemish, so I made my request in English, not French, which I use in Brussels. Many people in Belgium, a country cobbled together after the Napoleonic Wars, speak at least a smattering of all three languages, but tensions persist between the Flemish and the French-speaking Walloons from the south. Using English seemed diplomatic.

I studied the bike map at an open-air cafe on the beach, where I ordered a salad of baby shrimp -- known as gris -- my favorite Belgian specialty, nowhere fresher than within sight of the North Sea.

Afterward, it was an easy ride on the beachfront bike path to Het Zwin, at the mouth of the Zwin, a waterway that once connected thriving Bruges to the sea. But in the 15th century, the Zwin silted up, strangling commerce in the medieval metropolis.

Now the mouth of the Zwin is a nature reserve that spans 370 acres of dunes, salt marsh and woods and is beloved by birds. At a picket fence above a low-lying bog, dappled by dune grass and wildflowers, kids were communing with a large white stork looking for easy pickings from their picnic baskets.

Near the southern edge of the preserve I found the Het Zwin Butterfly Garden, which tells the story of the insect from egg to caterpillar, chrysalis and butterfly. Then I pedaled on through the pretty village of Het Zoute, with its acclaimed golf course and vacation homes, in a beguiling melange of Flemish farmhouse, Normandy manor and English cottage styles.

It was late afternoon by then, but the sun was still high in the sky and the beach beckoned. I was glad I’d reserved a room for the night at the Hotel Bristol in Heist.

The Bristol is a nicely renovated Art Deco building on the waterfront, with a restaurant and clean, simply furnished chambers. I changed into my bathing suit as soon as I arrived, then rented an orange-and-white-striped chaise at a beach spot called Josie, where I read and watched sailboats competing in a regatta. The water was warm, but the wind was chilly, which deterred me -- but not a passel of toddlers -- from swimming.

At that night’s dinner at the Bristol, I had shrimp croquettes, another local specialty. Battle of the Spurs fireworks flared outside my window. And I discovered a pink tinge on my face and shoulders, proof positive that there is such a thing as a Belgian beach vacation.

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Susan Spano also writes “Postcards From Paris,” which can be read at latimes.com/susanspano.

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Sea and sun

Hotel Bristol, 291 Zeedijk Heist, Knokke-Heist 8301; 011-32- 50-51-12-20, www.bristolaanzee.be; doubles from about $144, including breakfast.

Knokke-Heist Tourist Office, Zeedijk-Knokke, Knokke-Heist 8300, 011-3250-63- 03-80, www.knokke-heist.be.