IJmuiden, The Netherlands

The main reason for visiting IJmuiden was the steel plant - one of my old hobbies.
The steel plant which from 2010 it's a part of Tata Steel Europe has a quite long history behind it, which starts on the earliest of 1920. In the beginning, the factory was producing iron but with the new industrial requirements they switch later to steel producing. Nowadays the factory is focused more on the automotive industry - producing sheet metal blanks in special for car body manufacturing.

Ijmuiden's steel factory at 6:00 a.m.

At the first glow you'll find IJmuiden a little bit grey, the reason for this first impression is the steel factory and maybe a lot of marine traffic due to the huge harbour - the fourth largest harbour in Holland.
After getting used with the environment you'll find IJmuiden quite and cozy, a kind of mixture between an industry region and a nature protection area.

The old IJmuiden water tower. Nowadays eleven modern appartments can be found in this tower.

You'll see a lot of american cars on the road.

The IJmuiden's City Hall and the public square - on the bottom of the collage

It is said that the biggest attraction in IJmuiden is the sandy beach and it's
considered one of the largest beach you can experience in The Netherlands.
Due to the north sea weather there are many possibilities to make wind sports or other interesting activities which concerns wind and water: kite flying, parasailing or even bike sailing.

In order to enjoy all the activities, the IJmuiden's beach was devided in four areas, from which two are being used for swimming and sunbathing and the other two for different sport activities.

For fishing lovers it's recommended to use IJmuiden's pier, a quite good place to fish Mackerel. My second visit to IJmuiden was exclusivelly concentrated on fishing in the pier area. The pier can be observed right from the beach and it cannot be missed because of its almost 3000 meters long. Can't tell you exactly the real purpose of it but I can assure that it's a quite good place for fishing.

Behind the beach you'll find the National Park South Kennemerland. A huge diversity of living plants, animals and insects can be discovered here, along with a large relief diversity(printre altele ce consita in dune).
I didn't had the possibility to see all this animals, but the people with whom I had talked to told me that there are high chances to see here deers, horses, rabbits and even bisons.

For those who want to discover a little bit about second world war secrets, the Bunker museum stays at your dissposal. The history says that the museum is located in one of the remaining german bunkers, built as a part of the Atlantic Wall - protection for the Third Reich against Nazi Germany.
Unfortunatelly I cannot give you to much information about this museum, what I know is that the entrance fee is 3.50 euro and for those who want a guided tour around the dunes an extra fee of 2 euro will be added. For more infromation about the museum please click here.

Enjoy the entire picture collection here.