In the large square, situated in the rear, were collected the bathing cabins, in which refugees from all parts were sheltered during the first months of the war.
Take Rue Royale, Boulevard van Iseghem, then the road on the left leading up to the dike, near the Kursaal. (Vehicular traffic on the dike is prohibited from 9 a.m. till midnight.)
The Sea Wall.
Here the dike is separated by some 150 yards from the line of the dunes, being bounded on the west by the terrace of the Kursaal, on the east by a perré, rounded off in front of the port jetties. The effect of this bold promontory, which seems to defy the waves, is most striking.
The eastern end, on which stands the old lighthouse (now a semaphore station), was built at the beginning of the 19th century. It is now a promenade bordered with fine buildings, some eighty yards in length by thirty in width. The masonry embankment rises thirty feet above the foundations and is protected by four massive breakwaters.
At low water, only about 200 yards of the beach is uncovered, or about half as much as at the Western Baths, where the shore forms an angle immediately to the left.
In front stretches the New Western Dike, set further back than the old one, and prolonged as far as Mariakerke. The sea-wall at Ostend has thus a total length of 3½ kms.
The Sands.
Each summer, before the War, the Western Beach, with its vast expanse of golden sands, its countless bathing-machines and coloured tents, offered, in the bright sunshine and clear air, an extraordinarily animated and gay scene.