There are several reasons why Ypres is the best base for visiting WWI battlefields. The most compelling is that it lay at the centre of the Ypres Salient, one of the most fought over areas along the entire Western Front. Obviously, if you have a reason for visiting a specific site – the grave of a family member or a battle they fought in, for example – your choice is already made for you. But for anyone with a general interest in WWI, my recommendation as a centre for visiting sites and memorials is the city of Ieper. In 1914 the city was known by its French name, Ypres, but to the British and Commonwealth soldiers stationed in and around the town, it was simply “Wipers”. The name has, along with the Somme, become a byword for the horrors of trench warfare. And that makes the Ypres the perfect base for visiting WWI sites.
We chose Ieper as our base for a trip in October 2019 primarily because of the city’s accessibility to numerous wartime sites and landmarks. But this small, unpretentious town has more going for it, too. It is easy to walk around, has its own worthy sites including a world-class museum. and offers a good selection of hotels and restaurants. And the daily Last Post at the city’s Menin Gate is definitely not to be missed. The Bradt-published World War I Battlefields guidebook was tremendously helpful in detailing what to see and do in and around Ieper.
Ieper lies at the centre of what became known as the Ypres Salient: land occupied by the allied forces of Britain, France, Canada and Belgium that bulged into German-occupied territory. Not, as one can imagine, an ideal situation because to the north, east and south were enemy soldiers ready and waiting to shoot you. But it does mean that today’s visitors can’t help but be within touching distance of a battlefield, memorial or relic of the war – horrifying to contemplate.
Fighting in Flanders ran from the First Battle of Ypres in October and November 1914, to the final push by the Allies in September 1918, through the Second and Third Ypres Battles, the latter known as Paschendaele. It is estimated that around 750,000 soldiers lost their lives in the salient. The first use of gas as a weapon of war was unleashed during the Second Battle.
In Flanders Fields
From Langemarck in the north to Ploegsteert Wood in the south, this corner of western Europe, known as Flanders, was almost obliterated from the map. Its fields, woods, canals and small rivers, its market towns and farming villages ceased to exist. Buildings were smashed to rubble, or if left half-standing became hideouts for snipers, the cellars were occupied by officers plotting the latest “move” – which most often ended in stalemate and fractional movement of front lines. Fields that once produced cabbages, potatoes, sugarbeet and barley were churned to a sticky, sucking mud, trees became blackened stumps as orchards and woods disintegrated under a barrage of shells; cattle, pigs, chickens, ducks were abandoned if they couldn’t accompany their owners. In places, the earth was literally blown up, high into the air, thanks to tunnels packed with explosives. The huge craters are still visible today.
Tyne Cot cemetery commemorates 35,000 British and New Zealand soldiers 
A neat and tidy trench – the reality was very different 
The starkly simple Langemarke German cemetery 
Flanders mud so deep and sticky that men drowned in it
Just as the landscape of the city and surrounding villages and countryside changed with the fighting, so did the names of places. British Tommies along with Aussie, Kiwi, Canadian and Indian comrades had a penchant for changing tongue-twisting Dutch Flemish words to something more familiar. Thus the aforementioned Wipers for Ypres, while Ploegsteert became Plug Street, Wijtschate became Whitesheet. Certain spots gained new names, hence Hellfire Corner, which even had its own signboard. Located where the Ypres-Roulers railway crossed the Menin Road east of the city, it was a busy spot with soldiers coming and going. The Germans had guns constantly trained on the spot, known to Allied soldiers as “the most dangerous corner in the world”.
Rising from the ashes
The local population mostly fled, taking what they could pack onto a horse-drawn cart or just a handcart. By 1917, the town was reduced to rubble with almost all shops, houses, churches, schools, public buildings including the famous Cloth House, roads, railway lines and canals all destroyed. There were three choices: rebuild as a modern city, rebuild in the pre-war style, or leave it in ruins as a memorial to the war and all those killed. Winston Churchill was among those who thought it should not be rebuilt, but left as a reminder of the terrible destruction of war. Among those who wanted to see a replica city rise from the ashes was King Albert I of Belgium. Local citizens were eager to return – helped by the promise of a subsidy – and thus reconstruction began. For anyone interested in the architectural aspect of the rebuild, this website makes for fascinating reading. It is written from the point of view of innovative Flemish architect Huib Hoste and how he didn’t manage to realise his dream of a modernist Flanders, though he did sneak in a few minimalist buildings. It was mainly the monumental public buildings that were replicas, or at least, their facades were; the interiors were contemporary.
Make Ieper your base
The condensed nature of the sites means it is easy to make the most of a short visit, and this is why Ypres is the best base for visiting WWI battlefields. We stayed three nights in the town centre, booking two half-day tours on different days with Flanders Battle Tour, allowing us time to visit city-centre museums and wander around the town on our own. Joining an organised tour makes sense here: there is so much to see that planning one’s own itinerary would be time-consuming, probably frustrating, and transport would need to be organised. Our guide Jacques was extremely knowledgeable about the area and the history of the war. He is particularly expert in battlefield excavations. We heard about the unexploded mine that still lies under a local farmhouse, for example. We learnt why some headstones in the military cemeteries stand side by side touching one another: they indicate that the soldiers were killed or mortally wounded together. Jacques also has many tales to tell from old soldiers themselves who visited in years gone by.
The two tours covered the north salient and south salient, respectively. I’m not going to detail all we saw: it’s easy enough to find this information from tour company websites. We had marked contrasting experiences weatherwise: the first afternoon tour took place in cold drizzle, the second afternoon was in brilliant, crisp autumn sunshine. I’m sure almost everyone who visits a trench tries to imagine themselves in the boots of a soldier in the Great War. The rain and mist of the first afternoon gave us a taste of how it felt to live in a trench for days at a time – never mind the guns and the bombs, the weather made it miserable enough.
The Cloth Hall
The Grote Markt is the centre of the town, and is dominated by the Cloth Hall. In the early 14th century, it was one of Europe’s largest and most significant building, and operated as a warehouse and market for English wool and woollen cloth. Today it houses the excellent In Flanders Fields museum (currently closed because of Covid-19 restrictions). A weekly outdoor market is held in the square every Saturday. If you have your own car, please don’t park it in the square on Friday night: it will be towed away! The Menin Gate, the imposing and poignant memorial to the dead of the Great War, is a couple of hundred metres away. The Last Post Ceremony is still taking place at 8pm every evening, but obviously Covid-19 restrictions are in place, and as I write this in November 2020 no crowds are in attendance.
Talking of museums, how does the city itself feel? Given that it is reconstructed, does it feel like a museum itself? It didn’t feel in anyway artificial. The “old” public buildings such as the Cloth Hall are certainly cleaner than medieval equivalents. The interiors are modern, and have obviously been updated since the early 1920s, a task much easier than if the structures had dated back several centuries. In fact, the rebuilding of the Cloth Hall wasn’t completed until the 1960s. The houses and shops lining the sides of the square feature stepped gables – and had they not been destroyed in the war would probably still have looked like that today.
See more of my watercolour paintings as well as sketches at http://annwilliamsart.com.
Sleeping and eating – another reason Ieper is a good base
We stayed at the town-centre Hotel O Ieper, just off the Grote Markt. The hotel was comfortable and the staff friendly. There are several other choices in the vicinity, including the Ambrosia, Albion and Gasthof ‘t Zweerd. I go for small, independent hotels, but if you prefer a name, there’s a Novotel in the area.
Snack of beer and pate 
Locally produced Wipers Times 
Pastis and olives for a dinner aperitif
There are cafes and restaurants aplenty in the buildings facing on to the Grote Markt. We enjoyed coffees and snacks at the outdoor terraces during the day, and ate in a couple of different restaurants in the evening. For an early evening drink, we enjoyed the atmosphere and the beers at the St Aldophus bar-cafe, on the street leading to the Menin Gate. It boasts 25 local beers on draught. Our beer of choice, however, was bottled Wipers Times. Produced locally, it is named after the trench newspaper produced by British soldiers under the leadership of Captain Fred Roberts. It was satirical, its black humour offering troops a chance to blow off steam.
Getting there
We travelled from the UK, taking the Brussels-bound Eurostar train, alighting at Lille-Europe station in northern France. From here it is a short walk to Lille-Flandres station for a train to Kortrijk in Belgium (Courtrai in French), where we changed to a train for Ieper. The trains are fairly regular (about every half-hour). Buy a through ticket to Ieper at Lilles-Flandres just before you travel. The ticket counter for this service was not easy to find at Lille-Flandres; it was in an office next to the far left platform. There are no border formalities between France and Belgium (you won’t even know when you cross the border). Unlike public transport in much of Europe, you don’t validate the tickets on these services. The trip was just about 1hr 45 mins, including a short waiting time at Kortrijk, For timetables, fares and more information, see Rome2Rio, Train Line and Man in Seat 61. If you buy tickets from third-party websites, compare prices and check conditions first.
Other options include train from Brussels-Midi station in just under 2 hours. As Ieper is not on a major train line, if you are coming from another city, such as Paris, I’d recommend breaking your journey and including another destination in your itinerary, such as Lille or Brussels. If coming from the Netherlands, Antwerp is a convenient connecting city. If travelling by car from the UK, use either of the Calais or Ostend ferry routes or Eurotunnel to Calais.
Just one more thing!
A word for first-time visitors to Flemish Belgium. Don’t be like me and attempt to talk to people in your school-girl (-boy) French. They are not interested, and will reply in English. So just speak English in the first place!