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Things to Do in Ostend, Belgium: See Tripadvisor's 67,970 traveler reviews and photos of Ostend tourist attractions. Find what to do today, this weekend, or in June. We have reviews of the best places to see in Ostend. Visit top-rated & must-see attractions.
- Atlantic Wall Museum
- Beach of Ostend
- Zeilschip Mercator
- Kusttram
- Sint-Petrus-en-Pauluskerk
- Koninklijke Gaanderijen
- Fort Napoleon
- Anno 1465 Raversyde
- Leopoldpark
- Mu.ZEE
Ostend’s Raversyde neighbourhood has been left with one of the best preserved remnants of the immense German Second World War coastal defence, the Atlantikwall. This piece is made up of two kilometres of tunnels and trenches, 60 bunkers, as well as observation posts and gun positions. The site has become a superlative open-air museum that you can e...
In the warmer months the appeal of Ostend’s beach is self-explanatory. There’s around seven kilometres of irresistible fine sand, more than 100 metres wide in places. Well over half of the beach is edged by a promenade, the longest and liveliest portion of which is the Albert I Promenade, packed with cafes and seafood restaurants for moules-frites....
This handsome 78.5-meter, three-master sailboat is permanently moored in front of Ostend’s city hall, serving as a floating museum and landmark. The Mercator, named after the Flemish cartographer, was built in Scotland and launched in 1932, put to use as a training ship, but also a research vessel and ambassador for Belgium at world fairs. After a ...
Almost all of the Belgian coast is served by a tramline that first opened between Ostend and Nieuwpoort in 1885. The Kusttram is now almost 70 kilometres long and as well as being one of the few interurban tramways still running, is also the longest tramline in the world. There are 67 stops along the line, and in the peak summer period there will b...
You’d be forgiven for thinking that this magnificent neo-Gothic church on the namesake square is much older than it actually is. King Leopold II (1835-1909) had ambitious plans for Ostend and had been itching to build a grander place of worship than the Sint-Pieterskerk that stood at this site. His chance came when that church burnt down in 1896, l...
West of the Albert I-Promenade the seafront walkway becomes the Koning Boudewijnpromenade when it reaches the Royal Villa. From here, for almost 400 metres up to the Hippodrome Wellington racecourse there’s a stately Doric colonnade dating from the beginning of the 20th century. This was built to protect bourgeois and aristocratic visitors from the...
In the dunes East of the harbour is a polygonal Napoleonic-era fort completed in 1811. This is a holdover from the War of the Fifth Coalition of 1809, when Napoleon was expecting a seaborne attack from the United Kingdom to help the Austrian Empire reclaim territory that had previously been theirs. This never actually occurred and Fort Napoleon was...
Keeping you in Raversyde a little longer is a museum and archaeological site at the former Medieval fishing village of Walraversijde. The roots of this settlement, on what was once an island, go back as far as the Neolithic period. But Walraversijde’s apogee came in the middle of the 15th century when there was a prospering fishing industry, while ...
A couple of streets in from the waterfront there’s a rambling English park landscaped during the 1860s on the site of the old city fortifications. Set around a pond, Leopoldpark is a peaceful place to get out of the breeze for an hour or two, and has a few monuments of its own to track down. The Flower Clock, measuring nine metres in diameter, was ...
Ostend has produced lots of important artists, not least James Ensor, Léon Spilliaert and Constant Permeke. The city acquired an art collection with a gift in 1885 and eventually found a permanent home in 1986 at a Modernist former department store dating to 1947. Mu.ZEE focuses on Belgian art from the middle of the 19th century to the present, and...
- Soak up the harbourside vibes. Fact: a human-size whelk (by sculptor Stief Desmet) lurks at the end of the harbour arm. Make the pilgrimage to pose for a selfie, not forgetting to gaze back at the seaport city afterwards.
- Sample some famous local brews. For live Flemish music with your Belgian beer, make a beeline for ancient watering hole the Spanish Inn, rebuilt in 1729 but which dates back even further.
- Board the fabulously arty Crystal Ship. Check out Belgium’s best open-air art gallery, the Crystal Ship, a permanent street art trail featuring dozens of international artists.
- Take in the city from above, then gorge on local art. Gulp down views over bucolic Leopold Park by whizzing six floors up the austere old post office building, now an ad-hoc Cultural Centre.
- Visit the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. The Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, also known as Sint-Petrus-en-Pauluskerk, is a Roman Catholic church located in Ostend, Belgium.
- Explore Fort Napoleon. Fort Napoleon is a star-shaped fortress located in the east of the Belgian city of Ostend. Fort Napoleon was originally called Fort Impérial when it was built between 1811 and 1814 on the orders of Napoleon Bonaparte to defend the port of Ostend against attack from Britain.
- See the Atlantikwall. Atlantikwall, known as the Atlantic Wall Open Air Museum, is an open-air museum located in the Provincial Domain of Raversyde near Ostend, Belgium.
- Wander through Petit Paris. Petit Paris is a neighborhood in the Belgian city of Ostend located on the North Sea coast. It is part of the city's western expansion that occurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries during Belgium's belle époque period under King Leopold II.
St-Petrus-&-Pauluskerk. Ostend’s most striking historical building features beautifully ornate twin spires, a rose window and a gloomy neo-Gothic interior. It was consecrated on… Fort Napoleon. Ostend. The impenetrable, pentagon-shaped Fort Napoleon is an unusually intact fortress dating from 1812, though there’s comparatively little to see inside.
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Ostend is the largest city on the Belgian Coast and its only truly year-round destination. Along its wide white-sand beach is a spacious promenade surveyed by an interesting mix of midrise architecture atop cosy seafront cafes with glassed-in terraces. 01 / Attractions. Must-see attractions. St-Petrus-&-Pauluskerk.
