Hooge Crater Museum — Attraction in Ypres

I'm pretty confident that I can speak for my friends when I say that we thoroughly enjoyed our visit to the Hooge Crater Museum & Café. The two premises lie eight next to each other.

We first visited the Hooge Crater, at the front of the old Château come Manor House that lies slightly behind and to the side of the crater.

A beautiful old property that is now a hotel, spoilt slightly i think by the aqua park that is located just behind the crater and hotel. That said, for people to be spending time with their families, friends, and loved ones enjoying the aqua park is probably a good tribute to those who lost their lives here, even the German soldiers, maybe? A place once of such horror and cruelty is now a peaceful area where sheep graze and with the water park behind. Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong. It certainly makes you think.

Anyway, I digress. The cafe and museum, small in terms of some of the larger museums, yet privately owned, I believe judging by a newspaper article on display by the entrance to the museum are both very good.

The cafe is very good, popular and certainly very busy when we visited in the late summer sunshine in September 2024. The cafe offers a pretty good menu of hot and cold drinks and from hot and cold snacks through to meals.

There are three main areas to the cafe,a patio at the front adjoining the pathway and the Menin Road, then a conservatory with large opening doors to let in plenty of frah air and then a bar and restaurant inside. A good selection of beers, because that's important, well keeping hydrated is anyway 🤣.

The toilets are kept very clean and are modern, with no nasty smells or sniffs.

Once inside the museum, the entry fee is €9 per adult, which i didn't think was too bad. There's plenty of articles and displays to read, a good number of scenes of what it would have been like, lots of shells, machine gun cases, bayonets and all other kinds of WWI artefacts.

There's a guide if you want one, we didn't, we were happy to wander around at our leisure. The museum is well kept, well maintained and very clean; dust free. It's just the right size, just enough information to maintain interest and curiosity, yet not too much to make it overwhelming or laborious. Just right.

The view to the front of the old chapel looking into the Hooge Cemetery, especially on a bright sunny afternoon, is pretty good, especially from what appears to be the recently added new first floor exhibition at the front of the chapel. The museum is worth a visit, probably two hours, and the cafe is the ideal place to refresh. I had the tomato soup with bread, just right for our continued tour of the area.

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This privately run museum is a gem!

The exhibits are laid out in a logical and engaging way. Also, being able to link (via QR code) to a YouTube video of the museum owner's sons present the story of animals in war time was a really nice touch.

The owner himself was very friendly, and it was nice to be able to talk with him and to ask about his motivation for creating the museum .... but I'll not spoil the story and let you find out for yourself when you visit.

We picked a very cold, wet and windy day to visit so it was so nice after our tour of the museum to be able to sit in the warm cafe and enjoy a cup of tea - we even got fresh milk, which we had no idea is something that is very rare in this part of the world!!

If you are close by or pasding, we would recommend that you visit the Hooge Crater Museum

Enjoy

Steve & Nicki...

A beautiful museum where everything is immaculately and thoughtfully presented. Informative and moving. Directly opposite a military cemetary, which makes the visit even more poignant and makes the horror of it all so clear. The cemetery is peaceful and immaculately maintained, flowers and plants lovingly planted on the headstones. We also visited the cafe which was great too. The staff were friendly and welcoming. Additional info that maybe of use...there is a lovely motorhome aire at the back of the museum. Several lovely spaces opposite a field. All very pretty. Separately there is a hotel a short stroll away which has trenches in its grounds. They can be explored for a voluntary/suggested price of 1 euro per person. All definitely worth...