Belgium is witnessing a sad tourism boom, as increased numbers of visitors come to remember or honor those who died in World War I. Some of the heaviest fighting took place in Belgium, including long battles near Ypres and in Flanders.
With this Sunday marking the centenary of the war’s end, interest in the bunkers, monuments and landscapes of the war, some still bearing marks of battle, has risen. As well, many, especially from the UK, have been visiting the war cemeteries where so many were buried. British forces took especially heavy casualties in Belgium.
A number of local tourist offices in the area have mapped out self-guided tours of the former frontlines, using itineraries that were first developed in the 1920s, when visits by survivors and the bereaved were common.
