Belgian coast

A nearly 100-year-old water tower casts its shadow over the Opexquarter in the Belgian coast village of Ostend.

Before GPS, satellites and 3D scanning revolutionised land surveying, surveyors had to make do with what they had: a clear line of sight, a sharp pencil and fixed physical markers in the landscape.

The Green 62 (Groene 62) in Belgium lives up to its name. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Wijnendale, where the excavated railway bed has transformed into a verdant microcosm.

A German fire control post overlooking the beach at Bredene serves as a reminder of the large-scale defensive works of the Second World War.

Today, you won't find anything of the Pelican Bridge, a steel bridge kept in place with thousands of rivets across the Veurnevaart in Nieuwpoort.

As if the Atlantic Wall defensive strongholds in the Ostend dunes were not enough, Nazi Germany erected a second line of defence in the hinterland.

The dunes of Raversijde, a seaside resort west of East, are home to not one but two German bunker complexes.

Anyone entering Nieuwpoort via Kinderlaan will come across the remains of the World War II German Widerstandsnest Karthauserdünen.

On the night of 10 May 1918, the British army attempted to block the Ostend harbour channel so that German submarines could no longer sail out.

A monumental memorial was erected in 1938 on the bank of the Yser in Nieuwpoort in honour of Belgian King Albert I.