Ypres (Ieper in Dutch) is about 70km south of Bruges — roughly an hour by car, or two hours by train with a change in Kortrijk. The battlefields of the Ypres Salient, where some of the most devastating fighting of World War I took place, surround the town.

The In Flanders Fields Museum in the Cloth Hall on the Grote Markt in Ypres is one of the best war museums in the world. It's interactive, personal, and devastating. Allow at least two hours. The poppy bracelets given at entry contain real stories of individuals — soldiers, nurses, civilians — that become more poignant as you move through the galleries.

The Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres bears the names of 54,896 Commonwealth soldiers who died in the Salient and have no known grave. Every evening at 8pm, the Last Post ceremony is held under the gate — buglers play, traffic stops, and the names on the walls become, briefly, not just names.

The Tyne Cot Cemetery near Passchendaele is the largest Commonwealth war cemetery in the world. Nearly 12,000 graves, mostly from the 1917 Battle of Passchendaele. The scale is numbing.

Several tour operators in Bruges run day trips to the battlefields. They typically include the museum, Menin Gate, and several cemeteries and preserved trenches. Cost is about €60-80 per person.

If you drive, you can also stop at the German cemetery at Langemark — a very different atmosphere from the Commonwealth cemeteries, darker and more austere. And the preserved trenches at Sanctuary Wood give a visceral sense of what the soldiers endured.

Bring tissues. Even the most stoic visitors find Flanders Fields affecting.