Bruges
The heart of ancient Bruges, the old market square is lined with pavement cafes beneath step-gabled facades. The buildings aren't always quite as medieval…
Must-see attractions in West Flanders
Ypres
No museum gives a more balanced yet moving and user-friendly introduction to WWI history. It’s a multisensory experience combining soundscapes, videos,…
Bruges
Bruges’ most celebrated art gallery boasts an astonishingly rich collection that's strong in superb Flemish Primitive and Renaissance works, depicting the…
Bruges
In the restored chapel of a 12th-century hospital building with superb timber beamwork, this museum shows various torturous-looking medical implements,…
Bruges
Towering 83m above the square like a gigantic medieval rocket is this fabulous 13th-century belfry. There’s relatively little to see inside, but it’s…
West Flanders
This is an unusually light-hearted WWI attraction. Reverend Philip ‘Tubby’ Clayton set up the Everyman’s Club here in 1915 to offer rest and recreation…
West Flanders
Probably the most-visited Salient site, this is the world’s biggest British Commonwealth war cemetery, with 11,956 graves. A huge semicircular wall…
Ostend
Ostend’s most striking historical building features beautifully ornate twin spires, a rose window and a gloomy neo-Gothic interior. It was consecrated on…
Langemark Deutscher Soldatenfriedhof
West Flanders
The Salient's largest German WWI cemetery is smaller than Tyne Cot but arguably more memorable, amid oak trees and trios of squat, mossy crosses. Some 44…
West Flanders
The unusual 1950 IJzertoren is built of drab purple-brown brick and topped with power-station-style windows. This colossal 84m-high ‘peace’ tower is at…
Ypres
Every night at 8pm, traffic through the Menin Gate is halted while buglers sound the Last Post in remembrance of the WWI dead, a moving tradition started…
Bruges
Just east of the Markt, the less theatrical but still enchanting Burg has been Bruges' administrative centre for centuries. It's in this area you'll find…
Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917
West Flanders
Within the grounds of Kasteelpark Zonnebeke you'll find this polished WWI museum charting local battle progressions with plenty of multilingual…
Ostend
The impenetrable, pentagon-shaped Fort Napoleon is an unusually intact fortress dating from 1812, though there’s comparatively little to see inside. The…
Bruges
Around 10km south of Bruges, Kasteel van Loppem is a mid-19th-century brick castle-mansion which had its moment of fame at the end of WWI when it was…
Belgian Coast
This superb museum occupies the house and studio of Paul Delvaux (1897–1994), one of Belgium's most famous surrealist artists. What appears to be a…
Bruges
Bruges’ delightful begijnhof dates from the 13th century. Despite the hordes of summer tourists, remains a remarkably tranquil haven. Outside the 1776…
Ypres
A block east of Grote Markt, the famous Menin Gate is a huge stone gateway straddling the main road at the city moat. It's inscribed with the names of 54…
Ypres
One of Ypres' most attractive military graveyards, this Commonwealth War Graves Commission site is found 1km south of the Grote Markt.
West Flanders
Veurne’s main church is the delicately spired St-Walburgakerk, a spacious, heavily buttressed affair containing much-revered relics. The skull of St…
West Flanders
Around 8km south of Veurne, the late-16th-century Kasteel Beauvoorde is an intact, picture-perfect (though tiny by castle standards), four-storey moated…
Belgian Coast
Visits walk you through a genuine 19th-century fisherman’s cottage, teaching you about fish quotas and fishermen’s superstitions, then send you and your…
Belgian Coast
Located about 7km from Knokke-Heist's main strip, this excellent modern museum focuses on the period between 1940 and 1944 when the Zwin region was…
Bruges
The western end of the stadhuis morphs into the Basiliek van het Heilig Bloed. The basilica takes its name from a phial supposedly containing a few drops…
Ypres
Dominating the Grote Markt, the enormous reconstructed Lakenhalle is one of Belgium’s most impressive buildings. Its 70m-high belfry has the vague…
Bruges
The beautiful 1420 stadhuis features a fanciful facade that’s second only to Leuven’s for exquisitely turreted Gothic excess. Inside, an audioguide…
Bruges
Within the so-caled Adornesdomein estate is one of Bruges’ oddest churches, the 15th-century Jeruzalemkerk, built by the Adornes family. Supposedly based…
Ostend
The gripping Atlantikwall is a remarkably extensive complex of WWI and WWII bunkers, gun emplacements and linking brick tunnels created by occupying…
West Flanders
Once the municipal centre for weighing and storing hops, the 19th-century Stadsschaal now houses this distinctively scented museum, where you’ll learn…
Bruges
Within the stadhuis, this hall's polychromatic ceiling almost drips with medieval carvings. Murals depicting the town's history add to the room's…
Bruges
Eye-catching with its early baroque gables, gilt highlights and golden statuettes, this was once the seat of the ‘Liberty of Bruges’, the large autonomous…
Bruges
Dominating its surrounds, this 13th-century church was reopened in 2015 after extensive renovations. Its enormous 115m spire is unmissable throughout much…
Bruges
Behind the Arentshuis, Hof Arents is a charming little park with a hump-backed pedestrian bridge, St-Bonifaciusbrug, that crosses the canal, offering…
Belgian Coast
Around 5km northeast of Knokke, Het Zwin was once one of the world’s busiest waterways, connecting Bruges with the sea. In medieval times the river silted…
Bruges
The Historium occupies a neo-Gothic building on the northern side of the Markt. The immersive one-hour audio and video tour aims to take you back to…
Ypres
Ypres is unusual in that it has retained extensive sections of its city fortifications. Designed by French military engineer Sébastien Le Prestre de…
Bruges
Just inside the main entrance of the begijnhof this is a charming 17th-century house now converted into an endearing little four-room museum. In the…
Ostend
This lesser-known residential part of Ostend was once in ill repute, but savvy homebuyers have recently snapped up its wealth of utterly charming art…
West Flanders
In a quaint repurposed chapel on the Ypres–Menen road (N8), this small but characterful two-room museum is entered between assorted WWI sandbags, rusty…
