Poppies Restaurant News

[keithmroberts]

Tom

Quite simply, yes it is for adults, and if you post like one you will not find your posts removed or edited.

Keith Roberts

[frans]

I would be interested to hear from any of our Belgian friends who live in Ieper. What do they think of their town centre being turned increasingly to tourism? For example, when I first began visiting Ieper many years ago, Menenstraat was pretty much an ordinary, normal shopping street ... grocers, clothing, hardware, tobbaconist, etc. There were only one or two shops that sold anything of a WW1 tourist nature. That's changed now, with WW1 bookshops, battlefield tours, chocolate etc all coming in. The street is by no means all tourism yet but the trend has been that way and looks set to continue. Are Ieperlingen happy with it? Concerned about it? Not interested?

I have been coming to Ieper sinds 1993 when I moved from the UK to Belgium. The first few years were very quiet and going to the melenium a great surge in the number of tourist which sinds 2005 have been declining again in numbers.

The grenadier bookshop is still there and a new addition being the over the tops tours shop. I think we gained a chocolate shop but lost the P & J chocolate shop on the square.

I don't find WW1 overpowering at all, you can't ignore the fact that the Menin gate is a big vocal point around eight o'clock at night otherwise the whole city centre is very accesable, i suffer more with the roadworks around the town.

I don't think that ww1 is on the forefront of the ieperlinges minds they have there daily chores. The tourist who do come to Ieper want to eat and have a bed for the night, the local businesses cater for this i find more than normal.

That the local authority promotes the war en it's 100 year centenery i find normal.

One thing we forget is that Ieper is only a small town with a population of around 17000 with a world event that took place here. I lived in Dronfield, a village they called it with a pop of 40000. I like Ieper it is a very nice and welcoming town and a load of history, it can't be easy to please everybody but they do a good job.