Makkum, Netherlands | Beach Wednesday #30

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_{Larger panorama view on my website I think Peakd/Hive restricts image size.}

This is a post from a draft I had started for @uwelang's #BeachWednesday with the panorama photo stitched from 60 individual photos (please click on to enlarge it) weeks ago but didn't get around to actually writing it. I was too late for #29 and #30 has now been open for over two weeks, not sure what's happening but I know that Uwe is also a busy bee, so I'm just posting this now anyhow.

Makkum, Friesland

...is a very cute village in Friesland, Netherlands right on the Ijsselmeer, a closed-off inland bay, and very close to the English Channel.

_{source = Google Maps}

Makkum used to be our weekend home while we lived in Mannheim, Germany. It wasn't really close, five and half hour drive one way is quite a bit for a normal weekend. We'd usually pack our stuff on Thursday night and Friday after work we loaded our surfboards on our car's roof and off we went! Around midnight we'd arrived at the hotel where we became regulars - LOL. They knew us to the point that they actually stocked up on Gin&Tonic and got us some beautiful beer glasses as a gift.

The hotel is directly at the sandy beach only separated by the promenade. The whole bay is very shallow as you can see from the Google satellite photo as well. Which is perfect for (beginner) surfers.

Of course, our reason to go to Makkum every to every other weekend was windsurfing. Just look at this beach, the bay, and - how many people enjoyed this place! At least on sunny days. On windy days the beach was not as crowded.

Saturday morning after breakfast we'd head to the beach to rigg our sails and then we'd be found on or in the water most of the day. At night we'd eat at the hotel or a local restaurant and collapse into bed after a full day of sailing.

Sundays were rinse and repeat with the check out in between. On days when there wasn't much wind or we wanted a little time off we'd wander through the streets of Makkum or explore the nearby dike. One day we went to the North Sea beach which was wonderful but this is for another post.

We usually stayed till mid/late afternoon Sunday before we drove back to Mannheim. That way we thankfully missed most of the weekend traffic but it had us come home quite late. All in all, we always had great fun on these trips!