Top choice in 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 44,000 corpses were grouped together here, up to 10 per granite grave slab; four eerie silhouette statues survey the site. Entering takes you through a black concrete tunnel that clanks and hisses with distant war sounds, while four short video montages commemorate the tragedy of war.
It's beyond the northern edge of Langemark on bus route 95.
29.96 MILES
Dominating Tournai’s skyline are the five spires of its remarkable cathedral, which survived WWII bombs only for a freak 1999 tornado to compromise its…
21 MILES
Inaugurated in 1892, Lille's illustrious Fine Arts Museum claims France's second-largest collection after Paris' Musée du Louvre. Its cache of sublime…
24.03 MILES
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…
4.96 MILES
No museum gives a more balanced yet moving and user-friendly introduction to WWI history. It’s a multisensory experience combining soundscapes, videos,…
29.91 MILES
Tournai’s gorgeous triangular main square is ringed with cafes in fine gable-fronted guildhouses merrily flying guild banners. Kids play in ‘dare-you’…
23.9 MILES
Bruges’ most celebrated art gallery boasts an astonishingly rich collection that's strong in superb Flemish Primitive and Renaissance works, depicting the…
23.74 MILES
In the restored chapel of a 12th-century hospital building with superb timber beamwork, this museum shows various torturous-looking medical implements,…
24.01 MILES
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…
3.61 MILES
This interactive, mildly interesting cheese museum compares old and new cheesemaking techniques while a gratuitously naked Cleopatra figure takes a bath…
3.87 MILES
The enduring image of poppies as a symbol of wartime sacrifice comes from the famous poem In Flanders Fields. It was written by Canadian doctor John…
4.06 MILES
Probably the most-visited Salient site, this is the world’s biggest British Commonwealth war cemetery, with 11,956 graves. A huge semicircular wall…
4.75 MILES
This lake-fronted Normandy-chalet-style mansion and gardens are located in the centre of Zonnebeke village. The mansion was built in 1922 to replace a…
8. Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917
4.76 MILES
Within the grounds of Kasteelpark Zonnebeke you'll find this polished WWI museum charting local battle progressions with plenty of multilingual…