Ypres (or Ieper) is a small city in Western Flanders that grew as a trading and manufacturing city in the medieval and renaissance eras. Destroyed by artillery in World War I, the mostly redbrick city and its medieval Cloth Hall, originally constructed in 1304, were restored in the 1920s.

It’s a nice town for a stopover although the main reason many people visit is that it provides as good a place as any to understand how World War I was fought. Ypres was militarily important because when the front lines formed in Autumn 1914, the Allied forces held the area around the town, in a salient that stuck into German lines. This meant that it was a useful launching point for offensives, and an area that the Germans were challenged to defend. The Germans sensibly dug in on the higher ground to the east of the town, creating a heavily fortified zone that included the ubiquitous trench lines interspersed with major bunker complexes called Stellungs.  The town is surrounded by many military sites and memorials that mark battles throughout the war.

Ypres was always behind the lines, but well within German artillery range, and was flattened in the war. The town was restored to its red bricked medieval and renaissance glory in the 1920s, but there is a degree of uniformity in many of the houses that it hard to place until you realize that many of them were built at the same time.

The Menin Gate. Ypres’ main memorial is the rather imposing Menin Gate at the east town entrance, inaugurated by the British Government in 1928.

At 20:00 hrs (8pm) every evening, last post is sounded  by two buglers from the local volunteer fire department, a practice that goes back to 1928 with an interruption in 1940-44. That event gets very crowded, so go at least 15 minutes before and work your way to the outer side of the archway if you want to get close to the bugles.

The interior walls of the memorial list 54,896 missing soldiers who were not buried at the military cemeteries in the area, by regiment, rank and name. It’s worth noting that the British Army was very much a Commonwealth Army and soldiers from Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and Pakistan also are present here.

WWI in the west was one long stalemate until Germany’s economic collapse in 1918, with various offensives moving the lines back and forth in a futile and limited way that changed little except the number of dead and wounded. The Ypres salient experienced major offensives in 1914, 1915, 1917 and 1918, although Ypres stayed in allied hands throughout. Formally, the battles around the area are considered as:

• First Ypres (Autumn 1914): German offensive and Allied counter attacks.
• Second Ypres (Spring 1915): German offensive, including the first ever use of poison gas.
• Third Ypres, or the Battle of Passchendaele (Summer/Autumn 1917): Allied offensive.
• Fourth Ypres, or the Battle of the Lys (Spring 2018): German offensive.
• Fifth Ypres (Autumn 1918): Allied offensive.

One way to understand the terrain is to get a guided tour, and this can be done by bike to get the best sense of the terrain. Equally, you can rent your own bike, pick a set of military memorials and cemeteries and navigate round them by smartphone map. The roads are excellent and even if there is no bike lane, Belgian drivers are usually respectful of cyclists. The cemeteries were usually located close behind the front lines and so map out where the fighting happened. The most notable in the area, Tyne Cot, was a field medical station located in a captured German bunker complex, that was converted into a major cemetery postwar. Before going, you could visit the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s (CWGC) visitor center near the Menin Gate https://www.cwgc.org/visit-us/visitor-centres/ieper-information-centre

Ypres Salient Cycle Tour. The following is a clockwise route from the north and round to the east of Ypres, with about 38 km of moderate cycling, 10 or so stops and a break for lunch, lasting about 6 hours overall. There are many more sites that you can visit, so take this as a starting point.

Google maps link to provide navigation guidance at: https://goo.gl/maps/Aj6SSsbp2A9Lgfo89

The land is mostly flat, but you will begin to understand where the higher ground is soon enough. Key points along the route, identified in the map link are:

The Yorkshire Trench. Heading north along the east side the Ieperlee Canal, you first enter an industrial estate where there is a recovered section of 1915-1917 period British trenches.

Welsh Cemetery (Caesar’s Nose). Located east of the Yorkshire trench, this small cemetery for 1917 mainly occupied by the graves of Welsh soldiers, faces German positions that were just to the east in a salient called Caesar’s Nose. You’ll cycle along minor access roads to then go north and then northeast towards Pilckem Ridge and Langemark.

Welsh National Memorial. The Welsh Memorial is quite recent and memorializes the regiments of the Welsh Division that fought over this land. It sits on Pilckem Ridge, in the German lines just west of the village of Langemark, and was in the path of the July 1917 British offensive that included Welsh units such as the 38th Division. The Battle of Pilckem Ridge (July/August 1917) was part of the opening offensive of Third Ypres, that advanced allied lines until the German Spring 1918 offensive.

Langemark German Cemetery. Heading through the village of Langemark, you are in a key part of the German defenses north of Ypres. The cemetery was established over part of a bunker complex at the end of democratic Weimar era, in 1932, and has a very different feel from the Commonwealth cemeteries.

Heading southeast towards Passchendaele along Zonnebekestraat, you’ll pass the Canadian Army and Hertfordshire Regiment memorials – the latter indicating the furthest advance the unit achieved at Third Ypres in July 1917, before falling back. Passchendaele was a key terrain feature, which sat on high ground and was heavily fortified.

New Zealand Division Advance at Passchendaele. As you head towards Passchendaele you’ll pass the New Zealand Division Memorial at Roeselarestraat and further along on s’Graventafalstraat, there is a display that shows the New Zealand Division’s advance in July 1917.

You can then cycle up the road which was roughly in the middle of the route of the advance over mostly open ground. The farm and treeline are different now but the area had similar features in 1917 that crossed open ground.

Tyne Cot Cemetery. Tyne Cot was initially a casualty clearing station at the site of a German bunker complex, just south of Passchendaele, that was overrun by Australian and New Zealand soldiers in 1917. Its name was coined by British soldiers from Northumberland who remarked that German pillboxes resembled Tyneside cottages. It’s the largest cemetery in the area, with almost 12,000 graves and the names of almost 34,000 servicemen who had no known grave and who were not listed at the Menin Gate. There’s a good visitor center adjacent to the cemetery.

Heading northeast from Tyne Cot, you pass by the memorial at Keelarhoek and get on a trail that in places was a railway cutting used by the Australians in their advance on Passchendaele in October 1917, before entering the town.

Passchendaele is a good place for a break with a cafe in the center. The Moeyart Bakery (Statiestraat 3) is good for takeout if you just want to get something to eat in the square.

Polygon Wood. You then cycle south to Polygon Wood, which is just 8 kilometers east of Ypres and was repeatedly fought over. It was a Belgian Army training area pre-WWI that was held by the Allies in 1914, lost in 1915, retaken and then lost in 1917 before finally being recaptured in September 1918. The wood itself was blasted treeless in the war and was often a muddy morass lined with tenches and pillboxes, some of which remain in what is now a forest park.

There are two military cemeteries, Buttes New British Cemetery, which is principally for  Australian and New Zealand forces with a New Zealand Memorial that sits on the butte, and the smaller Polygon Wood Cemetery, which is an irregular, front-line cemetery that includes a single German. As you leave via the south corner of the wood, you’ll see the memorial at Black WatchCorner, where the regiment helped stop the Prussian Guard’s advance towards Ypres in November 1914.

From Polygon Wood, you then cycle west back to the Menin Gate, along the Menin Road, which was a major supply route for the Commonwealth forces. What was once called Hellfire Corner, because of the incidence of artillery bombardment, is now a busy highway roundabout.

Logistics

Ypres is quite compact with the railway station about a 20-minute walk west of the center. There are a decent number of hotel options and I stayed at the Novotel Ieper (Sint-Jacobsstraat 15) which was fine as Novotels usually are. There are a number of solid Belgian restaurants in town, most of which are around the center. The Marktcafé Les Halles (Grote Markt 35) has well-prepared Belgian standards and a great beer selection, including some local breweries, and In ‘t Klein Stadhuis (Grote Markt 32) is a more traditional place. Depot (Menenstraat 18) is a more modern take on Flanders cooking.

It’s worth spending one night in Ypres, particularly so that you can start early and do a decent tour of the area. Having achieved that, it is only a little more than an hour by train to Ghent if that is a next stop, so it’s quite practicable to finish cycling by late afternoon and be in Ghent at a reasonable time. It is Belgium so there are great beer options, particularly Kaffee Bazaar (Boomgaardstraat 9), which has a superb local and national selection, and also Brasserie Kazematten (Bollingstraat 1), which also offers food. The Ypra Inn, just west of Menin Gate, is a good place to observe the crowds who gather for the Last Post.

There are a few cycle shops that will rent you a bike, including Chez Marie (Neermarkt 6) and Biking Box (Menenstraat 15). Go online to find the various battlefield tour operators of which there are plenty.