Sunday afternoon at the beach

Lovely few hours this afternoon at the beach, this time the main section from the harbour to the pier here at Scheveningen.  The yachts were competing in the regatta off shore and thousands and thousands of people were enjoying 26C in the sun.  I'll just put a few pictures and captions here - it's late and I have to get to bed and get up at a reasonable time because the place needs a good clean and we have visitors from Utrecht at 2pm. This long weekend is Pinksteren or Pentecost, and tomorrow (Monday) is Second Pinksterendag.

Walked from home to the harbour.  Past a street bedecked with bunting and
streamers plus flags for Holland in the European Cup starting in a fortnight.

Some of the magical sculptures in place on the almost completed Niewe Boulevard.

Some of the thousands of visitors to the beach.  If you picked your spot carefully you needn't have been near anybody else - the size of the place is enormous.  The new beach is a further 80m into the North Sea.  Very impressive indeed.

The Kurhaus looking its elegant best as usual. 

The other side of the pier, looking north, just as busy for ever into the distance.

One of the many, many beach pavilions doing a roaring trade in food and drink.
Yes, there are yachts in the distance on the horizon, hundreds of them.

A Big Band plays to an appreciative audience on the boulevard, in
competition with the many live bands in the pavilions below. 
NB all these pavilions disappear at the end of September, packed away until next March.
 Amazingly impressive!

The first beer after such a lot of walking (plus an Italian ice cream earlier on).

Yes, there was a regatta on. I couldn't take a decent enough
picture out to see, but this was from the site of
our second beer of the afternoon.

This was beer #2. Good!

So good we demanded a repeat performance - 3rd and final beer before walking home....

...and passing yet another orange draped street - did I mention they're
a bit scarily fanatical about football here? 
Mind you, nothing else stirs their sporting passions as a nation, not even the Olympics.
Yes, mildly interested, but not 'stopping the nation' kind of interested. 
We Aussies are a breed apart in that department.