Ieper Things to Do Tips by filipdebont

It is always nice to walk along the Ramparts, whatever season it is.

This walk is signposted, and is 2.6 kilometres long. It is open all year and free. It can easily be done with a wheelchair.

It is also pretty interesting that that there are panels in 4 languages explaining the important spots along the walk.

This route starts at the Ammunition Dump (Kruitmagazijn) and goes towards the imposing Menin Gate (Menen poort).

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Address: Around the city
Directions: From the parking lot just at the other side of the railway station towards the Menin Gate.

As you could read in the previous tip, it is great to do the Ramparts walk. Doing this Ramparts walk, this means you walk on top of these Ramparts.

But walking on these Ramparts gives you no idea, on the fact where or how high you are walking.

A great alternative for this, is walking around the Ramparts, may be this is even a bit of an of the beaten track tip, as not many tourist do this, during their (short) visit in Ieper.

A great way to get across the water is taking the Ramparts Bridge, and like this you can start your walk around the Ramparts, lets say almost from the Menin Gate going clockwise around towards the Lille gate. And from here (from the other side of the water) you have a great view on the architecture of these Ramparts.

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Directions: around the Ramparts

The sightseeing tour of the Ieper VT-Meeting started at the Ammunition Dump (start of the Rampart walk).

Here our dear friend Patje (from Kuurne) started his great guiding. He explained us lots of interesting facts along this Rampart walk.

This Ammunition Dump dates from 1817, the walls are about 3 metres thick, that made it the perfect housing to keep the ammunition and the powder. Like this, this building also survived the First World War.

It only can be visited with a city guide.

nearby this Ammunition Dump are (free) toilets.

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Directions: Beginning of the Rampart walk

As we continued our walk along the Ramparts, we reached the Ramparts Cemetery.

This Ramparts Cemetery is located near the Lille gate (Rijsel poort).

The Ramparts Cemetery is a small British military cemetery, which contains the graves of 154 soldiers from the U.K., 14 from New Zealand, 11 from Australia, 10 from Canada and 3 unknown soldiers (total of 192).

The New Zealand soldiers belonged to the Maori- battalion, they came from "the most uttermost spot on earth".

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Directions: Along the ramparts walk, near the Lille Gate (Rijsel poort)

After a short visit at the Ramparts cemetery, we arrived at the Lille Gate (Rijsel poort).

In fact this Lille gate is the only gate that survived the vibrating and destructive past of this city and region. It dates from the Middle Ages and has been rebuilt many times on a number of occasions.

At this point we left the Rampart Route for a short side walk towards the Wooden House.

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Address: Rijselstraat
Directions: along the Ramparts route

From the Lille gate (Rijsel poort), we walked into the Rijselstraat - towards the city centre, about 50 metres - in order to see the Wooden House.

In fact this wooden house is a reconstruction of a 16th century house.

In the beginning of the nineteenth century Ieper had more then 90 wooden houses.

Unfortunately this house can not be visited.

From here we returned towards the Ramparts to continue our Ramparts walk.

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Address: Rijselstraat

As we were walking along the Ramparts Route, we were kind of lucky, as at the moment of the VT-meeting there were renovation works.

Below the Ramparts there are the Casemates (Kazematten), these Casemates are vaulted rooms in the Ramparts.

And as for some time the was water entering this casemates via the roof structure, it was really necessary to do some restoring works, in order to rescue these Casemates.

So they removed all the soil from the Ramparts, in order to put a protective layer on the Casemates roof in order to prevent water to come in.

And like this we were very lucky that we could see the Casemates from above, and see how they were constructed.

These Casemates can only be visited with a city guide and on special occasions (like Open Monuments day) these casemates were used as sleeping places for the soldiers, as stables, and even as a field hospital.

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Directions: along the Ramparts route

The Rampart walk ended at the Menin Gate (Menen Poort).

This Menin Gate is a must-see when you are visiting Ieper (besides the Cloth Hall and the Belfry of course).

In the far past this was the location of the Antwerp gate, which disappeared around 1853.

In fact this Gate was built on the spot from which during 4 years the British troops left to the front.
This Memorial Gate was built in 1927 in a classic style after a design of Sir Reginald Blomfield.

This monument is certainly the best known British War monument of the Great War.

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Address: End of Menenstraat
Website: http://www.lastpost.be/mainpage.htm

This Menin Gate (Menen poort) is an imposing monument. Not only because of its architecture.

But mostly because of the 54.896 names of soldiers missing in action.

But it still happens that soil works in the region; result in the finding of war gear, like ammunition, tools, weapons, and even remains of fallen soldiers. Then by the help of the name tags (or even by letters hidden in the clothing) the bodies can be identified, and then this name(s) are erased from the Menin Gate.

Every evening there is the Last Post ceremony at the Menin Gate at 8 pm. (see my Last Post tip)

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Address: End of Menenstraat
Website: http://www.lastpost.be/mainpage.htm

This Last Post ceremony is a daily tradition, already since 1928.

So every evening at 8 pm, the buglers of the Last Post association sound the Last Post.

This ceremony is free to follow (no entrance fee).

It can be pretty crowded at this Last Post ceremony, especially when there are special ceremonies or in the weekend, when many British tourists visit the Ieper region. There are always many British students as the trip to Ieper is kind of an obliged trip for the schools, of course because it is an important chapter of the British history.

During this ceremony different (military) delegations put wreaths of poppies to commemorate the many victims of the Great War.

More pictures in my Last Post Travelogue.

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Address: End of Menenstraat
Website: http://www.lastpost.be/mainpage.htm