Ostend - Sights

Sights

• Interesting locations are the Casino and Fort Napoleon.
• Ostend is also famous for its sea-side esplanade, pier, and fine-sand beaches.
• The James Ensor museum can be visited in the house where the artist lived from 1917 until 1949.
• The Mercator, the ex training sailing ship for Belgian merchant navy officers, is now open to the public to view.
• Hippodrome Wellington, horse racing venue.
• St Petrus and St Paulus Church, Ostend (Sint-Petrus-en-Pauluskerk), built in Neo Gothic style.
• In the Mu.Zee (a new museum after the fusion of the Provinciaal Museum voor de Moderne Kunst-Aan-Zee and the "Museum voor Schone Kunsten"), the museum of modern art from the 1830s to the present, you can view works of noted local painters such as James Ensor, Leon Spilliaert, Constant Permeke and the revolutionary post-war Belgian COBRA movement amongst others.
• Beach(es): Ostend is visited by many 'day' tourists, especially during July and August. Tourists from the Belgian inland and foreigners mostly arrive by train (day trips) and head for the closest beach area from the station (kleinstrand). The locals and other residents in Belgium usually occupy the larger beach (grootstrand). Ostend used to be widely visited by British, Germans, French and Dutch, but is now mainly frequented by Belgians and Dutch.
• Near the beach is a well-preserved section of the World War II Atlantic Wall.
• Views from the pier promenade or beach of departing and arriving passenger ferry ships from Ramsgate (UK).
• During summer evenings (or just any kind of weather) you can walk through the little streets around Het Vissersplein. At certain times there are local markets in the neighbourhood streets and in the summer the Vissersplein has music festivals. The Vissersplein (Bonenstraat/Kadzandstraat) is a car free zone with many brasseries where you can sit outside and have a drink. Look towards the port side and find many little fish outlets, and beyond that, again, you can view close the ferries docking.
• Oostende Train station.
• Film locations: more and more directors are filming in Ostend.
  The movies Place Vendôme with Catherine Deneuve; Daughters of Darkness with Delphine Seyrig as Countess Bathory; Armaguedon with Alain Delon; Camping Cosmos with Lolo Ferrari; and Ex Drummer based on the novel by Herman Brusselmans were partially shot in Ostend.
• The comic Le Bal du rat mort about a dreadful invasion of rats, is set in Ostend.