Veurne, Koksijde and Nieuwpoort

Today you will make a tour along the southernmost part of the Belgian coast. In Koksijde you can interrupt your route to go to the beach and to visit a few interesting museums. The Paul Delvaux Museum, housed in Het Vlierhof, immerses you in the personal world of this fascinating artist. Nowhere else in the world are so many works of the world's most famous twentieth-century surrealist painter brought together. Using a unique collection of paintings, objects and much more, the life and evolution of the work of Paul Delvaux are illustrated in an intimate setting. Personal belongings and precious souvenirs alternate with the greatest masterpieces. At the Ten Duinen Abbey Museum you can discover the role of the Koksijde Dune Lords within the Order of Citeaux, a European project avant la lettre. Not a dull, dusty affair or a far-from-my-bed show, but a unique archaeological site and a contemporary museum that brings the story of the silent stones to life. The Maldague religious silver collection also finds a permanent home in the Abbey Museum. At the mouth of the IJzer you can see another special building: the Nieuwpoort lighthouse, with its turbulent history. The lighthouse was built in 1881, 100m from the sea and 250m from the mouth of the IJzer. At the end of October 1914, during the Battle of the IJzer, the lighthouse was shot to pieces. Rebuilt in 1923, in brick, it was equipped with an electric 'lightning light'. During their retreat in September 1944, the Germans blew it up with dynamite. The following year, a 15-metre high signal pylon was temporarily placed on a dune. The current lighthouse was put into use in 1949: a concrete construction painted with white and red stripes. The last lighthouse keeper has since resigned - the operation of the lighthouse is now regulated by electronic remote control, from the Pilotage building on the other side of the IJzer estuary. The river IJzer, which you follow for quite a while here, will ring a bell with many people. After all, this was where the Belgian army retreated in 1914 in a final attempt to repel the German attack.