In Flanders Fields Museum

The In Flanders Fields Museum occupies the rebuilt Cloth Hall on the Grote Markt at Grote Markt 34 in Ypres (Ieper), in West Flanders, in the Flemish Region of Belgium. The medieval Cloth Hall was destroyed during the First World War and reconstructed after the conflict, and it now houses an interpretive museum about the war in the Ypres Salient. Rather than a display of objects alone, the museum uses film, sound, photographs, documents and artefacts to tell the war as a chronology, from the outbreak of fighting in 1914 through the gas attacks and the battles of Passchendaele to the Armistice and the rebuilding of the town. On arrival, each visitor receives a bracelet with a poppy symbol that can be scanned at stations to follow the story of an individual person, soldier, nurse or civilian, so the visit becomes personal. A visit takes around two hours, and many people allow longer to read and listen. The Belfry tower of the Cloth Hall can be climbed for a view over the town and the battlefield landscape. The museum is open daily with seasonal closures, and adult tickets cost about EUR 14, with reduced rates for those aged 7 to 25. Crowds are heaviest from late morning to mid-afternoon, particularly in summer and around Remembrance dates in November, and many visitors combine the museum with the Last Post ceremony at the Menin Gate each evening at 20:00. Ypres station is about ten minutes on foot, with trains from Kortrijk and Ghent, and the Menin Gate, Tyne Cot and other cemeteries are reachable from here by guided tour or car.