Bergen aan Zee
Zee Aquarium
The Zee Aquarium has been renovated and expanded recently and is now home for over 300 different fish species: take a journey through the Amazon Jungle with its piranhas and creepy reptiles. Travel via the Atlantic Ocean, Tropical waters and the Mediterranean Sea to the North Sea and discover the most spectacular fishes and other sea animals. Be dazzled by seahorses, starfish and clownfish. Stroke a ray at our Ray Reef and stand face-to-face with big sharks and poisonous lionfish. Outside you can watch our seals Selma and Tjark playing in the new pool with “private sand dune”.
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The village of Bergen aan Zee is quite young; the village was created in 1906 by a vision of the landowner and Lord of Bergen, mayor Jacob van Reenen.
There were already a number of homes and farms in the dunes, but it was not on a very large scale. The habitation on the inside of the dunes should be called Bergen Binnen instead of Bergen, and another part was already called Bergen aan Zee, which was a stopover for Bergen. Further to the coast there were fewer houses and less agriculture. He foresaw that more agriculture could take place in the dunes.
MUSEUM kRANENBURGH
The Huis Kranenburgh, which has been owned by the municipality of Bergen since 1952, has been a museum since 1993, located on Hoflaan, slightly outside the center of the North Holland village of Bergen. The museum has a permanent collection of works of art by painters of the Bergen School and artists associated with the Cobra group. In 2013, the complex was expanded with a number of halls and a large auditorium, surrounded by a sculpture garden. Under the title “Cultural Country Estate”, it has since also housed the Bergen Artists Center, which was founded in 1947, and which, in addition to visual artists, also includes composers, theater makers and writers.
Arial shot of bergen aan zee
The mayor’s wife Maria van Reenen-Völter also made efforts to develop the seaside resort. In 1904 she published a book in which she described the attractiveness of Bergen, especially for artists.
In 1905 a cart track through the Berger Bos and the dunes was replaced by a paved access road to the sea; the Seaway. The mayor ensured that in 1909 the tram line from Bergen was extended to Bergen aan Zee. A member of the Zeiler family from Baarn saw opportunities for the development of the catering industry in the seaside resort. In this way, through private initiative, a completely new village was created in 1906, which was given the old name, which appears in 1848, for the starting point. Exactly on July 28, 1906, the foundation stone of Café Prins Maurits was laid, which some years later was operated as Hotel Restaurant Café Prins Maurits; the first hotel in Bergen aan Zee was a fact and more than 100 years later the hotel still exists. In 2006 they celebrated the 100th anniversary of the village extensively.
The coat of arms of Bergen was awarded to the Noord-Holland municipality of Bergen in 1921. The municipality of Bergen was created after a merger between the old municipality of Bergen, Egmond and Schoorl. Elements from the arms of these municipalities have been transferred to the arms of the new municipality of Bergen.
The shield is red in color with a silver slanting beam over it and six silver merlets in the seams. The merlet (French: merlette, actually female of the merle (blackbird)[1]) also called merlaan is a heraldic heraldic animal. It is a duck-like or chick-like stylized bird with no beak and no legs. Not to be confused with a pollarded bird, which has a beak but no legs, nor to be confused with a duck, which is always depicted on weapons with beak and legs, or swimming.
The zeehuis (sea House)
The Zeehuis is a national monument dating from 1908 in the Dutch coastal town of Bergen aan Zee.
It was built as a convalescent home for children to a design by P. Heyn for the Burgerweeshuis in Amsterdam. The Amsterdam orphans could enjoy the dunes, forests and sea here for some time. It then served for many years as a holiday home of the Central Society for Children’s Rehabilitation Homes and Health Colonies.
In 1910 and 1912, two more colony houses with a similar purpose were built next to Het Zeehuis.
In 1961 Het Zeehuis was reopened as a holiday residence after it was purchased in 1959 by the Stichting Natuurvriendenhuizen en Kampeerterreinen. Today it is part of the Nivon..
