The Zee Aquarium in Bergen aan Zee: where it is and where you park

The aquarium stands on the Van der Wijckplein, in a village of 409 inhabitants with a single road leading to it. One of the eight parking locations of Bergen aan Zee is named after that same square, so the car can stand at the door. A sperm whale skeleton has hung there since 1998.

Where exactly is the Zee Aquarium?

On the Van der Wijckplein in Bergen aan Zee. The coordinates we keep to are 52.66077 north and 4.63166 east, and that is exactly the point we use for the village itself as well. So that dot is not accurate to the metre: it marks the village centre and not the front door.

The square lies about 150 metres from the strandopgang, the beach access. Closer to the sea are only Boulevard Zuid, at about 60 metres, and Boulevard Noord, at about 80 metres. Bergen aan Zee sits on the Noord-Holland coast north of Amsterdam, with Alkmaar as the nearest city.

What does it cost and what time is it open?

Those two we are not putting here. We have not been able to check the opening times and the admission price for this page at the source, and a tariff that was right last season is not a tariff. Count on it differing by season and look it up before you drive.

The village page for Bergen aan Zee carries the times and prices as we noted them earlier. Those have not been checked today either, so treat them as an indication and not as a promise.

Where can you park?

On the Van der Wijckplein itself. Bergen aan Zee has eight parking locations by the beach: Boulevard Zuid at about 60 metres from the beach access, Boulevard Noord at 80, Kennedyboulevard and Van der Wijckplein at 150, Parkweg at 225, Van Hasseltweg at 250, the Zeeweg at 400 and the Watertorenweg at 850 metres.

The village falls in parking zone B of the municipality of Bergen: 2.45 euros per hour, with a maximum of 14.70 euros a day. From March to October inclusive you pay every day from 10.00 to 19.00, public holidays included. From November to February inclusive on Saturday and Sunday only, in the same hours. On weekdays in winter you stand for free, at the weekend you do not.

How many spaces there are on the Van der Wijckplein and how quickly they fill we have not counted. We do know what the municipality does when it is full: you are sent on to Egmond aan Zee, Hargen aan Zee or Camperduin, and on busy days traffic marshals are posted on the roads towards the coast.

Can the dog come inside?

That we do not know. Whether dogs are welcome in the building does not appear in the sources we have been able to check, and we are not going to guess at it.

Outside, the rules are fixed. Between 1 May and 1 October your dog may run off the lead on the beach before 10.00 and after 19.00. In between he may come along on a lead on the activity beaches with the orange posts. On the sunbathing beach (yellow posts) and the naturist beach (pink posts) he is not allowed between 10.00 and 19.00, not even on a lead. From 1 October to 1 May more is allowed than in summer. Checked on 3 September 2026 with the gemeente Bergen (Bergen municipality), which brings in new beach rules on 1 January 2027.

Is it busy?

Nobody here publishes visitor numbers, so we do not have them.

We do know how often it is searched for. On 5 September 2026 “zee aquarium bergen aan zee” stood at 6,600 searches a month. For comparison, in the same village: parkeren (parking) 880, camping 880, restaurants 880, strand (beach) 720 and “wat te doen in bergen aan zee” (what to do in Bergen aan Zee) 210. All together 3,570, which is a little more than half of what the aquarium pulls on its own. Only the hotel searches come close, at 3,600.

That makes the aquarium the most searched subject of this village, while the existing tourist site for the region stands at position 18 on that search.

What else is nearby?

The beach, at about 150 metres. And the village itself, which looks newer than the coast around it: Bergen aan Zee came off the drawing board in 1906, on the initiative of mayor Jacob van Reenen. Leonard Springer designed the villa park in 1907, Berlage drew the centre in 1908. The Vredeskerkje (the little peace church) on the Kerkstraat was consecrated in 1918.

Further north lies De Kerf, a cut through the front row of dunes where sea water is allowed to flow into the dune, at about 2.9 kilometres as the crow flies. The land there belongs to PWN, the Noord-Holland water company.

How do you get there without a car?

One road runs into the village, the Zeeweg. Anyone who wants to skip the parking business leaves the car at the fietstransferium (bike transfer car park) on the Groeneweg in Bergen and cycles the last stretch: not quite five kilometres to the sea, through the woods.

Which bus lines serve Bergen aan Zee and where the stop lies in relation to the Van der Wijckplein we have not checked. So that is not here.