Boekhandel De Witte Zee

De Witte Zee is a small independent bookshop on Kursaal-Oosthelling, the short street beside the Kursaal, a few steps from the promenade. Its sign says bookshop, boekhandel and librairie, and that sums it up: a seaside bookshop with one bookseller, Eva, who keeps a sharp and funny shop diary on Instagram.

The stock is a personal selection rather than a wall of bestsellers. Expect Dutch literary fiction and non-fiction, translated novels, some English titles, picture books, comics and a cabinet of French-language books, which the owner says surprises some Flemish visitors but suits a town where both languages mix on the beach. Postcards are a smaller but handy line if you want something light to post or take home. The bookshop also has two resident cats.

It opens Wednesday to Sunday from 11:00 to 18:00, which makes it an easy stop on a weekend walk along the seafront. Pick it when the beach is too windy, or when you would rather have a recommendation from a bookseller than from an algorithm. The shop is small, so this is a place to browse slowly.