Dark Tourism

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.

On Christmas Eve 1944, disaster struck Kalken when a V1 bomb hit the Vaart canal in Kalken at 4 pm.

In 1990, a Sherman tank was parked at Balgerhoeke lock in Eeklo in honour of the Canadians who liberated the town from German occupation on 15 September 1944.

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

The Castillo de la Monta atop the 123-metre-high Monte Urgull has watched over the Spanish coastal city of San Sebastián since the 12th century. 

The Abbey of Aulne was founded around 637 on the wooded banks of the Sambre. Golden years and disaster succeeded for centuries, but the French Revolution dealt the abbey the final blow.

The French village of Remenauville had 138 inhabitants living and working in the shadow of its neo-Gothic church tower in the early 20th century. But World War I changed everything.

One of the 138 Dutch air watchtowers was built in the 1950s right between the rivers Maas and Waal.

The Atlantic Wall, Nazi Germany's World War II defence line, stretched over 4,000 kilometres from the North Cape to the most south-westerly tip of France, namely Hendaye.