Imagine that the Scheveningen beach were covered with sand in some freak natural disaster. And 2500 years in the future, archeologists will finally dig up the beach clubs and by some strange accidence they remained well preserved. Probably, they will call this place something like 'The Beach of a Hundred Thousand Buddhas' because of the enormous amount of Buddha-statues they will find. I guess they will interpret these buildings not as beach clubs, but as temples. The people of this civilisation, they will say, worshipped the Buddha in strange rituals involving eating dinner together and drinking a divine drink they called cocktails. The sea played an important role in their religion, so they built all their temples at the shore.
I wonder what the link between beach clubs and the Buddha is? According to all known sources, Buddha, who lived in the plains below the Himalaya mountains, never made it to the sea and he certainly wasn't known for having a good time at the beach. And yet, the number of Buddha statues in Scheveningen beach clubs is astonishing. Maybe this is because of a certain tropical atmosphere that comes with Buddha statues? Maybe the clubs hope to evoke emories of Thailand and similar countries? Maybe it is because Buddha statues are part and parcel of today's petty bourgeois notions of trendiness? In any case: there is no escaping the Enlightened One during a visit to the Scheveningen beach.
This is especially true at Beach Club Bliss, which is where we have our breakfast this Monday morning. A bigger difference than between this huge, slick beach club and last week's De Fuut is hardly imaginable. In fact, the only similarity is the presence of Buddha statues - but against the two that could be found in De Fuut, Bliss seems to offer several hundred small and bigger Buddhas.
The design of this club has been executed with an eye for detail, even though there is nothing really exciting here: the white, black, brown and grey furntiture and the Buddhas accompanied by strategically placed glass buckets containing bottles of Moët & Chandon make this a schoolbook example of 'a trendy contemporary beach club' - but this also means there is absolutely no surprise to be expected here. In itself, this is not strange. Bliss is part of the Bloomingdale group, which started with the famous Bloomingdale beach club in Bloemendaal (another beach club-rich town on the North Sea coast). And Bloomingdale basically wrote the book regarding the winning combination of clublife, fusion food and chill out atmosphere that is so characteristic for succesful beach clubs in the Netherlands. This gives Bliss an incredibly smooth atmosphere. The large kitchen, the busy personel, details such as a freshly cut orchid placed on today's newspaper on the reading table: everything seems to run like clockworks and everything seems geared to enable the guests to relax and have a good time. So when the cook talks too loudly of his exciting adventures during last weekend's King's Day festivities, he is sternly reprimanded by the manager.
Although the weather is pleasant, I decide to sit on the lounge couches inside. The ones outside are
covered in a kind of rubber or plastic, and Rihanna Gaga is so active that she will want to crawl around. In fact, when I place her on the floor, she has crossed a considerable part of this large beach club in the blink of an eye. And Bliss is big: the building itself, but also its sprawling terrace, which easily dwarfs several of the smaller beach clubs. Because Bliss opens at ten, rather than nine, Rihanna Gaga has slept before we walked here and she is well rested. She is in a talkative mood, babbling away - she has yet to learn her first word, but that doesn't keep her from recounting entire stories which, I am sure, must be very interesting. It helps, of course, that they play the kind of loungey dance music she is so fond of, and that the couch and the floor offer ample opportunity for her to move around.
We are the first guests, although over the next hour a few more people will arrive: couples, grandparents and parents with children. This week is a school holiday for many Dutch people, but it is apparently too early for many of the holidaygoers that come to Scheveningen this week. Bliss doesn't have a set breakfast, like the other clubs we have been to. I could opt for yoghurt with muesli and fruit, but at €7,50 this seems overpriced. Instead, I choose a baguette with Thai chicken and a fresh mint tea, the latter to be shared with Rihanna Gaga. The sandwich is tasty, albeit with a sauce that has a bit of a synthetic feel to it. The chicken itself is quite nicely done though, and considering that it makes for a full lunch, it is not bad value for €9,00.
Rihanna Gaga keeps fooling around: she obviously enjoys this place, which I guess appeals to her preference for a laid back vibe. Also, the lounge corner in which we sit really allows her to move around a lot. Her mood has been exceptionally good for the last few days anyway. Towards the end of last week she had sleeping problems, probably because her teeth are coming through. In fact, only yesterday I discovered her first tooth. But over the weekend, het mood improved. Anyway, this is a baby that rarely cries and almost never is in a bad mood for long.
I order an espresso with the friendly waiter - the staff is young and cheerful - and observe my daughter. I relish these moments, because I have to go to Bologna for five days tomorrow. I will give a guest lecture at the university there and discuss a possible book with colleagues and although I am looking forward to these things, the idea that I will be away for such a long time - in fact, the longest I have ever been seperated from her - is something I am really not looking forward to. I have even considered taking her with me, but that would be too much of a hassle. I like travelling with her, though - and so does she. Last February, the two of us visited my aunt in Sweden and we really had the time of our lives. But Bologna is work-related and to take a nine months old baby on a lecture tour would be odd.
When I've finished my espresso and given Rihanna Gaga her fruit, I decide to head into town. There's shopping to be done. Scheveningen is slowly waking up when we walk towards the supermarket. Cars with tourists arrive, shops are opened, the terraces are filling up. The season has begun for real.
I wonder what the link between beach clubs and the Buddha is? According to all known sources, Buddha, who lived in the plains below the Himalaya mountains, never made it to the sea and he certainly wasn't known for having a good time at the beach. And yet, the number of Buddha statues in Scheveningen beach clubs is astonishing. Maybe this is because of a certain tropical atmosphere that comes with Buddha statues? Maybe the clubs hope to evoke emories of Thailand and similar countries? Maybe it is because Buddha statues are part and parcel of today's petty bourgeois notions of trendiness? In any case: there is no escaping the Enlightened One during a visit to the Scheveningen beach.
This is especially true at Beach Club Bliss, which is where we have our breakfast this Monday morning. A bigger difference than between this huge, slick beach club and last week's De Fuut is hardly imaginable. In fact, the only similarity is the presence of Buddha statues - but against the two that could be found in De Fuut, Bliss seems to offer several hundred small and bigger Buddhas.
The design of this club has been executed with an eye for detail, even though there is nothing really exciting here: the white, black, brown and grey furntiture and the Buddhas accompanied by strategically placed glass buckets containing bottles of Moët & Chandon make this a schoolbook example of 'a trendy contemporary beach club' - but this also means there is absolutely no surprise to be expected here. In itself, this is not strange. Bliss is part of the Bloomingdale group, which started with the famous Bloomingdale beach club in Bloemendaal (another beach club-rich town on the North Sea coast). And Bloomingdale basically wrote the book regarding the winning combination of clublife, fusion food and chill out atmosphere that is so characteristic for succesful beach clubs in the Netherlands. This gives Bliss an incredibly smooth atmosphere. The large kitchen, the busy personel, details such as a freshly cut orchid placed on today's newspaper on the reading table: everything seems to run like clockworks and everything seems geared to enable the guests to relax and have a good time. So when the cook talks too loudly of his exciting adventures during last weekend's King's Day festivities, he is sternly reprimanded by the manager.
Although the weather is pleasant, I decide to sit on the lounge couches inside. The ones outside are
covered in a kind of rubber or plastic, and Rihanna Gaga is so active that she will want to crawl around. In fact, when I place her on the floor, she has crossed a considerable part of this large beach club in the blink of an eye. And Bliss is big: the building itself, but also its sprawling terrace, which easily dwarfs several of the smaller beach clubs. Because Bliss opens at ten, rather than nine, Rihanna Gaga has slept before we walked here and she is well rested. She is in a talkative mood, babbling away - she has yet to learn her first word, but that doesn't keep her from recounting entire stories which, I am sure, must be very interesting. It helps, of course, that they play the kind of loungey dance music she is so fond of, and that the couch and the floor offer ample opportunity for her to move around.
We are the first guests, although over the next hour a few more people will arrive: couples, grandparents and parents with children. This week is a school holiday for many Dutch people, but it is apparently too early for many of the holidaygoers that come to Scheveningen this week. Bliss doesn't have a set breakfast, like the other clubs we have been to. I could opt for yoghurt with muesli and fruit, but at €7,50 this seems overpriced. Instead, I choose a baguette with Thai chicken and a fresh mint tea, the latter to be shared with Rihanna Gaga. The sandwich is tasty, albeit with a sauce that has a bit of a synthetic feel to it. The chicken itself is quite nicely done though, and considering that it makes for a full lunch, it is not bad value for €9,00.
Rihanna Gaga keeps fooling around: she obviously enjoys this place, which I guess appeals to her preference for a laid back vibe. Also, the lounge corner in which we sit really allows her to move around a lot. Her mood has been exceptionally good for the last few days anyway. Towards the end of last week she had sleeping problems, probably because her teeth are coming through. In fact, only yesterday I discovered her first tooth. But over the weekend, het mood improved. Anyway, this is a baby that rarely cries and almost never is in a bad mood for long.
I order an espresso with the friendly waiter - the staff is young and cheerful - and observe my daughter. I relish these moments, because I have to go to Bologna for five days tomorrow. I will give a guest lecture at the university there and discuss a possible book with colleagues and although I am looking forward to these things, the idea that I will be away for such a long time - in fact, the longest I have ever been seperated from her - is something I am really not looking forward to. I have even considered taking her with me, but that would be too much of a hassle. I like travelling with her, though - and so does she. Last February, the two of us visited my aunt in Sweden and we really had the time of our lives. But Bologna is work-related and to take a nine months old baby on a lecture tour would be odd.
When I've finished my espresso and given Rihanna Gaga her fruit, I decide to head into town. There's shopping to be done. Scheveningen is slowly waking up when we walk towards the supermarket. Cars with tourists arrive, shops are opened, the terraces are filling up. The season has begun for real.
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