A Belgian Beach Gem

By Linda Tancs

Close to the French border, De Panne is a Belgian town on the North Sea known for its beach. You won’t be swimming there this time of year, but you’ll have peace and quiet to enjoy the wide and clean sandy beach, arguably one of the best in Europe. The area features the Dumont Quarter, a series of 19-century summer houses built in the dunes that resemble English cottages. The summit of Kykhill Dune Park offers views of the historic quarter as well as the sea.

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Billed as the Great North American Eclipse, a total solar eclipse will cross North America on April 8, 2024, passing over Mexico, the United States and Canada. The path of the eclipse begins in Mexico, entering the United States in Texas, and traveling through Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. The eclipse will enter Canada in Southern Ontario, and continue through Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton. This will be the last time any solar eclipse will be visible within the United States until 2045. 

Be prepared! So long as supplies last, you can purchase eclipse glasses and other accessories, like a phone app and photo filter, from American Paper Optics, a NASA-approved manufacturer. The link in the preceding sentence is an affiliate link, which means that if you click on the link and purchase merchandise from the page, then I may receive a small commission.