Experience the best of Ypres

The Cloth Hall on the Grote Markt, a Gothic trading hall begun in the thirteenth century, was destroyed in the fighting and rebuilt in the decades that followed, together with the town around it. The belfry rises from the building, and the In Flanders Fields Museum is housed inside it. A short walk away, the Menin Gate bears the names of more than fifty thousand Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave, and the Last Post is sounded beneath it every evening.

The land around Ypres, known as the Salient, is dotted with cemeteries and battlefield sites. Tyne Cot, near Passendale, is the largest Commonwealth war cemetery in the world, Essex Farm marks the dressing station where John McCrae wrote 'In Flanders Fields', and Hill 60 and Hooge Crater show the scarred ground. Poperinge, a hop-growing town to the west, was a rear base with its own wartime club, Talbot House.

Cooking here is Flemish: frites, mussels, beef stewed in dark beer, and the hop-flavoured beers of Poperinge, with Belgian chocolate and waffles to follow. The old ramparts around the town make an easy walk, and the flat farmland around is good for cycling. Showers can fall in any month.