Looking for a beach destination - travelling solo - nice beach, town, bikes....

Hi,

Last minute planning still works if you're not too picky. On the beach town, where? In France I suggest Etretat not far from Le Harve. In Germany...Travemünde near Lübeck.

It's really far out of the way, but look up Binz, on the island of Rügen on Germany's Baltic coast.

Much easier to get to is the North Sea coast of Belgium. I particularly like the town of De Haan.

I was also impressed by my brief visit to Domburg on the tip of Zeeland province in the Netherlands.

Nice beaches And nice towns And biking is difficult. Croatia has nice beaches and nice towns, but biking is difficult. Ditto for Liguria in Italy. Sardinia has great beaches, but the towns aren't that interesting. And in Southern Europe it gets too hot for biking anyway. That's why I agree with Tom: Germanys Baltic coast is exactly what you are looking for. Great sandy beaches like the Weststrand on the Darß peninsula, Schaabe on Rügen island or the 40km long beach on Usedom island. Many of the towns along the coast are World Heritage Sites, like Greifswald, Stralsund, Wismar and Lübeck, and others like Schwerin, Güstrow or Ludwigslust are equally interesting. The coast is mostly flat, only Rügen, the most interesting part of the coast, has a few gentle hills and cliffs. And bike paths are everywhere.

Thanks so much. What if I have up the biking? Then ???

What do you mean by a nice beach? Miles of sand? Sea cliffs and coves? Surf? Absence of crowds and beach umbrellas?

Tom's Binz/Rügen suggestion is a good one for scenic beaches/coastline bike touring. The Insel Hiddensee can be reached by ferry and is essentially car free. That said, I'm a warm water person and while the Ostsee is scenic, it looked like windsurfers were all in wetsuits.

The buses serviing Rügen towed trailers for bikes.

If you base out of Stralsund, Barth, Zingst, Prerow side to the west is pretty flat with scenic small towns and cafes for coffee stops.

As Sasha notes, you need to define "nice". Features such as the Seebrücke Sellin (long pier) are nice as in interesting but are not the Santa Cruz boardwalk or Coney Island (if you think of these beach locations as nice.

You should check out Barcelona, a great city with fine beaches, great restaurants, hotels, things to see.

You could also look at the Adriatic coast of Italy (Rimini, Pesaro, Cattolica). They will probably be busy in July but they do have some nice beaches).