Oostende; Saturday, 21 April, 2018

After a pleasant breakfast I headed out of the hotel and caught the tram along the coast to the outskirts of the town and the dunes at Raversijde. Here, during the second world war, a chunk of the Atlantic wall was built, much of which sill survives, all being slowly being swallowed up by the dunes. I spent a long time looking round the site taking in vast amount of engineering that must have taken place to build all the fortifications and tunnels.

From the Atlantic Wall I headed inland slightly to the Anno 1465 museum. This has several reconstructed buildings from the fishing village that existed on the site during the 15th century. The museum tells the history of the site and why it was abandoned.

From Raversijde I caught the tram back through the centre of Oostende and over to the dunes to the east of the city. Here it was time to visit another fortification, albeit in this instance from the earlier Napoleonic era.

The spectacular fort was built to defend the Belgium coast from the marauding British, but the attacks never came, and the site was slowly swallowed up by the dunes until the outbreak of WWI at which point the Germans dug it out of the sand and brought it back into use. After the war it served several purposes including as a museum and a climbing wall, as well as being pulled back into service as a fort by the Nazi’s in WWII. By the 1980’s it was abandoned and slowly decaying before it was protected by the state and refurbished and restored.

Most of the outside of the fort has been restored to how it would have been during the Napoleonic times, but inside a lot has been left how it was by the late 80’s.

After having a long look round the fort I popped out onto the very pleasant deck bistro built above the dry moat for a very late lunch and then wandered back over to the tram stop to head back into Oostende.

I stopped off at the hotel to freshen up before heading out for a very light dinner, given lunch has been barely an hour earlier, before having another walk along the prom and then heading back to bed.