daytrip to Ieper (Ypres)

Ieper, 15 May 2026

one of my best friends wanted to visit Ieper and he knew i was a fan, so we decided to go together! i had a really fun Friday night at his place where we watched Norbit with his brother and i shared some metal music with them. i slept pretty badly because i was too excited for the next day. come Saturday morning we left early for a full day visit to Ieper, one of my very favourite places in Belgium.

long story short: Ieper was one of the most important European cities in the early to high medieval era, diminishing in influence from 1400 onwards, and despite getting revamped defensive walls in the late 17th century, the city remained a mostly unimportant town. today it still has fewer inhabitants than it did in 1200. it was completely, utterly flattened during WWI. but a lot of effort was spent in rebuilding monuments and building in historical neo-styles from the 1920s onwards. today only a few modern eyesores break up the otherwise strongly homogeneous, (neo)gothic look of the whole town, with only a few baroque and neo-classicist style buildings. it's a popular destination for British Commonwealth country visitors because so many British, Canadian, Australian and New Zealander soldiers died here. even a few Aboriginal folk were shipped across the world to fight and die in a European war.

(link if it doesn't load: https://i.postimg.cc/69SNnY1H/ieper-1.png)

we started the day by entering the town on foot via the Rijselpoort (Rijsel gate) and i immediately wanted to show him the British cemetery on the edge of town. a tragically beautiful setting, where we spotted very docile ducks with their ducklings (1). in a first church we encountered, the Sint-Pieterskerk (Saint Peter's church), we saw this beautiful contemporary figure huddled underneath sheets (2). then we reached the Grand Square where the Cloth Hall is. we walked around the gothic Sint-Maartenskerk (Saint Martin's) (4, 5) and admired the Cloth Hall with its belfry as well (3).

(https://i.postimg.cc/Bqt0jdN5/ieper-2.png)

the interior of the Sint-Maartens is just beautiful. full of rich materials and handcarved details. no expense was spared during the almost complete reconstruction of the church after WW1, which was actually a cathedral from 1561 to 1801. check the huge shells used for holy water (2), the disturbing Pensive Christ sculpture (which has a more fun name in Flemish: "Christus op de Koude Steen" meaning "Christ on top of the cold stone") (3) and the marble pulpit which looks like it was made from expensive chocolate (4).

(https://i.postimg.cc/PtNjCBK8/ieper-3.png)

there was a market happening on the Grand Square which we strolled through (1). it was too early for lunch but we didn't wanna get hungry in the museum, so we bought two artisan sweets (and a less artisan chocolate milk), which we ate on a deep window sill of the Cloth Hall (2). third pic is another close-up of the crazy beautiful civic hall. we entered the Ypres Museum which is a general city history museum. it had this amazing modern glass window (4)...

(https://i.postimg.cc/2rFmMdV5/ieper-4.png)

...which was in this meeting room (1). which smelled amazing by the way, like wood perfume, very similar to the one i was wearing (cashmere wood and incense)! i didn't take many picz inside the museum but trust me it's a great visit (2). the collection is varied and they use humour to teach you history. third pic is a final inside view of the hall's courtyard. then we had lunch: warm pulled pork and pastrami sandwiches with homemade iced tea/lemonade (4).

(https://i.postimg.cc/NB7YS85L/ieper-5.png)

after lunch we walked straight to the Menenpoort (Menin gate) (3) which is a large war memorial city gate, built in the 1920s in place of a historic city gate that was destroyed years before. we stopped at a few shops beforehand and a creepy but old looking alleyway (1, 2). the gate commemorates British Commonwealth soldiers by listing their thousands of names on stone slabs, as well as honouring anonymous bodies that were recovered (4).

(https://i.postimg.cc/q4X0SczC/ieper-6.png)

after seeing the centre's architectural highlights we decided to walk the entire perimeter of the small city, which has partly intact defensive walls with a romantic park on it. the northern side of the city has shed its walls in favour of fancy rowhouses, a huge prison, and at-the-time modern water installations. among the route you come across brutalist WW1 shooting towers (1), a cyclical room where winter ice was stored during the summer (2), remnants of medieval defensive towers (3) and weird sculptures (4). the last one depicts a scene of legendary Reinaert De Vos (Reinaert the fox), a local anthropomorphic animal legend (a hero furry basically).

(https://i.postimg.cc/3YC7VjdJ/ieper-7.png)

despite my love for the Cloth Hall i have to award the most beautiful spot of Ieper to the intact south-eastern defensive walls and its park. just look how lush it is, and the views to the outside world reflected in the calm moat. what's missing though is a beautiful vista towards the historic core. that interior view is completely obscured by trees, bushes, and a few sneaky modern highrises. they just HAD to throw in a few boring 70s and 80s blocks in the historic core... there's only this one open view towards the backside of the Sint-Jacobskerk (Saint Jacob's) (2).

(https://i.postimg.cc/6WktJYrS/ieper-8.png)

the weather was bipolar all day but we finished with a very warm sun. when we got in the car we opened a Monster we bought in one of the stores- we got three flavours we had NEVER tasted before- and this electric blue is GOOODDD. very happy ending!

hope you enjoyed together with me!