Hotel Regina, Ypres - A Review

With just under 24 hours in Ypres, we needed somewhere central to stay!  My preferred site for booking hotels is hotels.com I used it for all of the hotels we stayed in on our train trip to Hong Kong, and its always got us great rooms at fantastic prices.  I grabbed an old copy of the Belgium Lonely Planet from my shelf so I could check out their recommendations too, and use their map to see where places were.  Inside the planet I found 105 euros! It must have been left from a trip we did years ago - we didn't even stay in Belgium, just passed through, but it was enough for our hotel on this trip, so thank you past selves for being so casual with your cash!

A hotel that appeared on both hotels.com and the planet was Hotel Regina.  Its located on the central square, right opposite the In Flanders Field Museum and just down the road from the Menin Gate.  At

€95 for the night, we still had some cash left for a beer!  Thanks again past selves!

Like everywhere else in Ypres, the shadow of the war is part of the fabric of the building.  However, it was in WWII that the hotel was used to help the repatriation of allied airmen.

A down side to its central locations is that there is no specific parking for the hotel itself.  However, it wasn't a problem to find street parking nearby which was free on a Sunday but it did mean we had to put money on the meter first thing Monday morning.  If you are staying longer, I'm sure there would be free parking a short walk away and you can get a ticket for half and hour free which would be enough to unload the car.

 

The staff couldn't have been friendlier and more helpful.  When it turned out that a bed hadn't been provided for Little Owl, the reception staff themselves came up with one.  The room was plenty large enough to take the put up bed, along side the generous double bed.  Our room looked directly onto the square.  The 'original' features made it hard believe that this hotel, along with most of Ypres had been lovingly rebuilt after being destroyed in the First World War.

Breakfast was served in the bar area, which made for a relaxed experience in comfy chairs rather than a formal dining room.  There was cereals, cold meats and cheese, bread and a selection of pastries, and a rather attentive man keeping our coffee cups topped up!

If you are heading to Ypres, I highly recommend Hotel Regina.

Ypres - A town that never forgets

Ypres, a town that never forgets - a town that can't forget?  One hundred years since the start of the First World War, Ypres is the focus of the pilgrimage that many thousands of tourists make each year.

Ypres (or Ieper as it is officially known) is located in the west of Belgium, just one and a half hours by car from Calais which makes it very accessible.  As you near the city, you begin to spot cemeteries by the side of the road or in distant fields.  The Commonwealth ones are the most recognisable, with their matching white headstones.  We had visited Tyne Cot Cemetery, the largest of all the cemeteries in Belgium, several years ago.  This time we visited the Essex Farm Cemetery where the famous poem In Flanders Field was written.  

If you are going to visit a Commonwealth Cemetery or Memorial, then I highly recommend this leaflet produced by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission for a basic introduction.

Ypres itself is a small medieval city, largely rebuilt after the war.  Its town square is dominated by the Cloth Hall building which you could be forgiven for thinking is a cathedral.  The Cloth Hall is home to the In Flanders Field Museum which Papa Owl assures me was worth the €9 entrance fee (Little Owl was desperately in need of a nap, and I wasn't sure she was quite ready for a museum!).

A short walk from here is the Menin Gate, a most impressive structure which dwarfs the nearby buildings, over fifty thousand names are engraved on the gate, all of whom died during the war and who's bodies were either not found, or not identified.

Every night at 8 o'clock, the Last Post is played during a short ceremony. We arrived not long after 7 and the crowds had started to form.  Papa Owl headed into the gate itself, while I found somewhere to sit with Little Owl outside.  Here is Papa Owls words on the ceremony:

"The ceremony is a simple act of remembrance centred around the playing of the last post. Wreaths are laid and the exhortation is read. On some occasions, including ours, a  visiting band plays some hymns. I stood at the back and started taking to some Ypres locals who attend every day without fail. They told me about one of the buglers who only missed one day in 60 years. My impression was that the people of Ypres are still immensely grateful for the sacrifices made by the soldiers of Great Britain and the Empire 100 years ago."

As always with traveling, meal times get out of any resemblance of normal, which is even more noticeable with Little Owl in tow.  Breakfast had been on the ferry, lunch was ice cream at about 4 o'clock and dinner was yet to happen.  However, at 9 o'clock there were still plenty of restaurants open around the main square, many of them family friendly with other children dining.

The next morning gave me the chance to look around the shops.  There isn't a large shopping area, with several small retails parks located outside of the centre.  Nearly all of the shops are closed on Sundays, and many of the independent shops are closed on Monday mornings too!  

Ypres is a small beautiful city which is still completely in the shadow of the war that started over 100 years ago.  I cannot help but wonder what it must be like to grow up in such a place.  To have your life dominated by such a devastating event that happened so long ago.

Ypres, a town that never forgets - a town that can't forget?



If you are visiting Ypres, then check out my review of Hotel Regina

 

Silent Sunday