Ostend museums · Military history
Military history · since 1992
The Atlantic Wall at Raversyde
original name: Atlantikwall Raversyde
A strip of dune where the works of both world wars have survived side by side. The chief thing here is the Aachen battery of 1915: the only German coastal battery of the First World War of which enough is left to read the whole arrangement of that war’s coastal defence; of the others only scattered concrete boxes remain.
Minimum route
2–2.5 hours
Founded
1992
Ticket
from €10
Today
10:30–17:00
What to see
The Aachen battery — begun on 8 January 1915 and in service by the end of that April: the observation post, the gun positions, the communication trenches. The Saltzwedel-neu battery of the Second World War — more than sixty bunkers and underground galleries. Everything has been kept where it stands: nothing was carted in.
Minimum route — 2–2.5 hours for the essentials
Two hours.
- 45 minutesthe Aachen battery: the observation post, the gun positions, the communication trenches of the First World War.
- 50 minutesSaltzwedel-neu: the bunkers and underground galleries of the Second.
- 25 minutesthe dunes between them, where one sees how one war was laid over the other.
Reference
About the museum
The province of West Flanders opened the domain in 1992 and has been enlarging it since. The Aachen battery was restored over three years and reopened; together with the Saltzwedel-neu battery it makes a strip of some sixty concrete structures joined by open and underground passages.
Good to know
The park around the bunkers is open all year and free; the fortifications themselves only in season and by ticket. The domain belongs to the province and also houses a rescue centre for birds and wild animals.
Getting in
How to get there
Raversijde is the western edge of Ostend, six kilometres from the centre. The Kusttram runs along the coast with a stop at the domain itself; by car, the Nieuwpoortsesteenweg.
Opening timeschecked on 19 August 2026, the museum website
closed for the day
| Mon | closed |
| Tue–Fri today | 10:30–17:00 |
| Sat, Sun | 10:30–18:00 |
last admission 1 h 45 min before closing
The season opens on 14 March. Closed on Mondays except during school holidays and on public holidays, when it opens daily and until 18:00. Last admission one hour and forty-five minutes before closing.
Ticketschecked on 19 August 2026, the museum website
When to go
The walking is over open dunes, and in wind and rain the round becomes hard going. In summer and in the holidays the domain stays open until 18:00; on ordinary weekdays it closes an hour earlier.
Contacts
Of interest to children
Two family quests run through the domain, and children usually take to the bunkers. The round is long and entirely in the open, so reckon on two hours of walking.
Access for visitors with limited mobilitychecked on 19 August 2026, the museum website
The museum — partly. The Aachen battery of the First World War is accessible by wheelchair with assistance and with a pushchair. For the Saltzwedel-neu battery of the Second World War a baby carrier works better than a pram.
If this moved you
In the same city
The concrete in the dunes is coastal defence of the twentieth century; the brick fort across the harbour did the same work a hundred and thirty years earlier, and in 1940 the Germans wrote it into this very wall.
· No. 83