ABSTRACT
When the Dutch want to spend a summer’s day by the sea, not a few drive up to the quiet village of Petten, perched on Holland’s North Sea coast. Some stay in tidy cottages huddled within earshot of the roaring surf; others smell the sea air or watch seabirds from their hotel balconies or the windows of the handful of shops and restaurants near the hamlet’s main intersection. But from town, nobody can get so much as a glimpse of the nearby sea.
