Ostend, Belgium: Self-Guided Walking Tour

If you are looking for things to do in Ostend, Belgium’s vibrant North Sea coastal city offers a compelling mix of maritime heritage, striking architecture, and modern art museums. Whether you want to explore military history among the dunes or discover where painter James Ensor lived and worked, Neywo features a free audio guide for Ostend covering 35 narrated places.

What to see in Ostend: Key landmarks and museums

Maritime and military heritage

Moored in Ostend’s marina between the railway station and the town hall, the Mercator is a steel-hulled barquentine built in 1932. This protected monument and museum ship served as a training ship for the Belgian merchant fleet until 1961, and also participated in scientific observations and world fairs.

On the city’s eastern shore, Fort Napoleon is a polygonal fortress built between 1811 and 1814 on the orders of Napoleon Bonaparte. Originally intended as a base for an invasion of Great Britain, the fort later served as a defense installation and was used by German occupying forces during both World Wars before reopening as a museum in 2000.

A little further along at Raversyde, the Provincial Domain includes the Atlantic Wall Open Air Museum, preserving more than sixty bunkers and around two miles of trenches from both world wars. The site features the First World War Aachen Battery, begun on 8 January 1915, and the later Saltzwedel-neu Battery from 1941, surviving largely because Prince Charles, Count of Flanders, owned the land and opposed its demolition.

At Zeeheldenplein, the Seafarers’ Monument was erected between 1953 and 1954 as a tribute to the fishermen, cabin boys, sailors, and soldiers who lost their lives at sea. The memorial occupies the former site of Ostend’s first lighthouse, the Vlaggemast.

Art, culture, and historic architecture

The Ensor House museum preserves the final home and studio of the painter James Ensor, known as the painter of masks, who lived and worked here from 1917 until his death in 1949.

In the historic centre, the Roman Catholic Sint-Petrus-en-Pauluskerk rises with spires reaching 72 metres into the sky. Built in a grand neo-Gothic style influenced by Cologne Cathedral and Vienna’s Votivkirche, construction began in 1899 with the support of King Leopold II, and the church contains the tomb of Queen Louise-Marie at the front of the main altar.

Mu.ZEE, Ostend’s art museum by the sea, houses a collection devoted to Belgian art from 1830 onwards, bringing together modern and contemporary works following a 2008 merger. Other cultural stops across the city include the Ostend Historical Museum De Plate, dedicated to local heritage, alongside public art installations such as the Vissersvrouwen statue, The Sea, the equestrian Statue of Leopold I, and Guillaume Bijl’s sculpture Sorry.

Religious and historic architecture further dots the streets, including the Dominicanenkerk on Christinastraat and The English Church along Langestraat, which traces its roots to the sixteenth-century English Protestant community. Ostend also hosts the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS), a web-based database hosted by the Flanders Marine Institute dedicated to cataloguing marine organisms.

Explore Ostend with a free audio guide

To make the most of your visit, download Neywo and explore with a free audio guide designed for an independent traveller. The app includes 2 walking tours, 1 bus route, and 1 bike route to help you navigate the city. Walk along the 2.68 km, 100-minute route with 9 stops, or take the 2.19 km, 71-minute art trail featuring 8 stops. You can also ride the 6 km, 26-minute bus route with 4 stops, or pedal the 7 km, 35-minute bike route with 7 stops. Each story plays automatically as you reach the place, allowing you to walk at your own pace with no group, no schedule, and narration available in 11 languages.

For more destinations nearby in this part of Flanders and Belgium, you can also plan trips to explore cities such as Nieuwpoort, Ypres, Ghent, [Bruges], Mechelen, Leuven, Lier, Tongeren, and Tienen.