Explore the countryside around Nieuwpoort

Nieuwpoort is a pleasant seaside resort at the mouth of the Yser. You will find the largest marina in Northern Europe, a Belfry and of course a lot of cultural history. Nieuwpoort is mainly known for the Battle of Nieuwpoort in 1600 between the Republic and the Spanish armies. In the twentieth century, the Germans were at the proverbial door. During the Battle of the Yser in the First World War, Nieuwpoort was badly damaged. The town, a stronghold for the Belgian army, was able to maintain itself through an old tactic: inundation. Incidentally, there is also a town in the Netherlands with the name Nieuwpoort. The two Nieuwpoorts are twin cities.

The area around Nieuwpoort is also great for cycling. The route takes you through the Poldervlakte, as the region behind the Belgian coast is also called. The landscape here is flat and interspersed with a network of canals and waterways to drain the land. In this part of West Flanders, the old-fashioned peace and quiet still prevail. An ideal area to clear your head and completely unwind.

During the route you will also visit picturesque polder villages such as Mannekensvere, Keiem and Stuivekenskerke. In this region, the landscape and the villages still bear the traces left by the First World War. Stuivekenskerke also suffered greatly at the time. In October 1914, Belgian officers set fire to the church of Stuivekenskerke so that the Germans would not use it as an observation post. When the Belgians flooded the IJzer plain a few days later, the German advance was stopped, but part of the village was flooded. For the next four years, Stuivekenskerke remained divided into a northern part with German posts and Oud-Stuivekenskerke with Belgian outposts. One of these outposts was manned from December 1914 to May 1915 by the artillery observer Edouard Lekeux, a reserve lieutenant who was in fact a monk. After the war, he became a Franciscan again.