Ostend
With the panelling of a traditional café but the backlit bottle racks of a fashion-conscious cocktail bar, Lafayette hits a fine balance between hip and friendly. The tubas and hanging hams add eccentricity, and conversation isn't quite drowned out by DJs whose tastes ranges from Parisian jazz to Barry White. Around 50 beers include the full sweep of Trappists.
Beer from €2; cocktails from €7.50.
Several other bars nearby are also lively until late.
13.56 MILES
The heart of ancient Bruges, the old market square is lined with pavement cafes beneath step-gabled facades. The buildings aren't always quite as medieval…
26.34 MILES
No museum gives a more balanced yet moving and user-friendly introduction to WWI history. It’s a multisensory experience combining soundscapes, videos,…
13.69 MILES
Bruges’ most celebrated art gallery boasts an astonishingly rich collection that's strong in superb Flemish Primitive and Renaissance works, depicting the…
13.59 MILES
In the restored chapel of a 12th-century hospital building with superb timber beamwork, this museum shows various torturous-looking medical implements,…
13.59 MILES
Towering 83m above the square like a gigantic medieval rocket is this fabulous 13th-century belfry. There’s relatively little to see inside, but it’s…
27.28 MILES
This is an unusually light-hearted WWI attraction. Reverend Philip ‘Tubby’ Clayton set up the Everyman’s Club here in 1915 to offer rest and recreation…
23.76 MILES
Probably the most-visited Salient site, this is the world’s biggest British Commonwealth war cemetery, with 11,956 graves. A huge semicircular wall…
0.35 MILES
Ostend’s most striking historical building features beautifully ornate twin spires, a rose window and a gloomy neo-Gothic interior. It was consecrated on…
0.07 MILES
Soul superstar Marvin Gaye wrote his last hit, 'Sexual Healing', in 1981 while living in Ostend. His residency is marked by a wildly tacky statue of the…
0.21 MILES
One might expect this museum, occupying a house that hosted Napoleon in 1798 and Belgian royals from 1834–1850, to be a little more grandiose and exciting…
0.3 MILES
This educational operation has a little one-room collection of seashells and sand that you can examine under the microscope.
0.35 MILES
Ostend’s most striking historical building features beautifully ornate twin spires, a rose window and a gloomy neo-Gothic interior. It was consecrated on…
0.43 MILES
Mu.Zee, Ostend’s foremost gallery, features predominantly local artists. There’s a significant collection by symbolist painter Léon Spilliaert (1881–1946)…
0.43 MILES
This fully rigged, three-masted 1932 sailing ship was once used for Belgian Navy training purposes and is now a nautical museum that hosts changing…
0.46 MILES
Evolving since 2001, architect Takashi Sawano has faithfully reproduced a Japanese garden just blocks from Ostend's seashore. Come to wander through its…
0.47 MILES
The last Ostend trawler to have fished around Iceland (1970s) is brought to life with waxwork figures, videos and sound effects. Highlights include the…