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Ramparts Cemetery, Lille Gate – Menin Gate Memorial loop from Ypres

Routes

Running trails & routes

Ramparts Cemetery, Lille Gate – Menin Gate Memorial loop from Ypres

Moderate

5.0

(4)

394

runners

Ramparts Cemetery, Lille Gate – Menin Gate Memorial loop from Ypres

00:41

6.51km

10m

Running

Moderate run. Good fitness required. Mostly paved surfaces. Suitable for all skill levels. The starting point of the route is accessible with public transport.

Last updated: March 21, 2026

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921 m

Vauban Ramparts and Moat, Ypres

Highlight • Historical Site

Old records of Ypres go back to the 11th century as "Iprensis" and "Ipera". The name would come from the river Ieperlee, formerly called Ypres. It was a founded city that industrialized early and grew into the third city of the county of Flanders, but then experienced a decline. The cloth industry collapsed. During the First World War, the Ypres was on the frontline and was razed to the ground. A historicizing reconstruction was chosen that revived the city. In the 21st century, Ypres attracts tourism from home and abroad.

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1.67 km

Cycle Path Along the Ramparts Moat, Ypres

Highlight • Cycleway

The cycle path along the fortified canals, designed by Vauban, takes every cyclist quickly and safely out of the center.

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1.85 km

Ypres Ramparts and Moats

Highlight • Historical Site

The fortress route reveals the most beautiful places on the ramparts around the whole outskirts of the city, from high up on the ramparts to low down along the beautiful moats. The route also explores the vanished fortresses in the north and north-west of the city.

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2.46 km

The Preacher's Tower with information board

Highlight • Historical Site

Definitely worth reading if you are interested in history.

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2.90 km

Ramparts Cemetery, Lille Gate

Highlight • Historical Site

This is one of the smaller cemeteries for the victims of the First World War in Ypres and the surrounding area, but it is no less moving.

What you will surely notice, no matter what size they are: You will always find (artificial) poppies in the cemeteries. What's it all about? On May 3, 1915, in Ypres, a Canadian officer wrote down the first words of a now famous poem: “In Flanders fields the poppies blow”.

John McCrae's poem isn't the only connection between the poppy and war. Poppies grow on rubble and in places where the ground has been moved frequently. The battlefields of Flanders are one big heap of war-torn soil, ripped apart by thousands of shells. This allowed the seeds to germinate. The profusion of red poppies on the battlefields of Flanders - often the only fleck of color in a sad landscape of ruins, mud and bomb craters - has to do with war.

With its deep red color like the copious blood spilled by soldiers and a black heart like a gunshot wound, the poppy became a symbol of commemoration of the First World War.

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4.08 km

Menin Gate Memorial

Highlight • Monument

Historically, the Menin Gate of Ypres was just a passage across the moat and ramparts of the old city fortifications, on the road to the nearby town of Menen. Nevertheless, it had a special meaning for the troops: from here thousands of soldiers made their way to the front, which was called the Ypres Salient - many were never to return.

Today you are standing in front of one of the greatest and most moving memorials of the First World War in the form of a Roman triumphal arch. During the inauguration ceremony in July 1927, the Somerset Light Infantry horns played the tattoo for the first time, and since 1928 it has been played every evening at 8 p.m., regardless of the crowd or the weather.

The vast white Portland stone walls of the Menin Gate contain inscriptions with the names of nearly 55,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers who fell on the battlefield and have no burial place; son, father, brother. Indeed, the walls of the Menin Gate were not large enough: 34,957 other names of the last lost are written on the walls of Tyne Cot Cemetery east of Ypres.

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5.38 km