TOURIST ROUTES
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Heuvelland and surroundings. There was the bitter life at the front and the better life behind the front. ‘Pop’ was like a little Paris. A few kilometres away lies the border between life or death. Heuvelland was a scene of constant fighting, a veritable gateway to the hell of Dante’s Inferno.
Pioneer
The german masters of concrete in the trenches The Pioneer Route explores the area behind the old German front of 1914-1918. Today, this area straddles the borders of France, Flanders and Wallonia. But during the war there were no such borders. The Flemish town of Wervik and the French town of Wervicq-Sud were merged together to form a single municipality. The German ‘Pioniere’ - pioneer troops or military engineers - were a common sight throughout the region. They were responsible for the building and maintenance of roads, concrete bunkers, munitions depots, field hospitals.... The car route ‘Pionier’ (75 km), signposted with six-sided direction boards, will take you to all these places The car routes are available from the various tourist offices in the Westhoek or can be ordered from Westtoer via T. +32 (0)50 30 55 00 or shop.westtoer.be. The six car routes are also combined in a map. You can also explore the cars routes via a new computer application: Touristic Car Routes Flanders Fields. This application is a guide and a travelling companion all rolled into one and will take you by car to all the most important First World War sites. Its offline navigation tool tells you exactly where you are and where you need to go. And once you arrive at your destination, it has plenty of useful photographs, texts, documents, sound fragments and other information, which tell you what happened at that particular location during the war years. You can also download the application ’Behind the Front 14-18’. This is a handy mobile app that contains digital stories linked to 75 sites of interest in the area behind the German lines (some in the Westhoek region, some in the Leie region). Choose your starting point, select a theme and a mode of transport (car, bike, etc.) and away you go on a 14-18 voyage of discovery in German-occupied Belgium. Learn what life was like behind ’enemy lines’, thanks to the app’s unique photo material, videos, personality sketches and augmented reality. Both applications can be downloaded free for iOS and Android.