Rooie Zitapad

The walk starts at Vijverpark in Langemark. The name Rooie Zitapad refers to Rooie Zita from the Bakelandt comic series, although on the ground the route is shaped much more by the surrounding landscape and local history.

A small church path leads towards the municipality’s water basins. At the Steenbeek, you pass the Harry Patch Memorial. Patch fought in this area in 1917 and returned many years later to the same landscape. The memorial commemorates men of his battalion who were killed during the fighting.

From there, the route continues along paved country roads between open fields. Several old local place names appear along the way, including Blatezak, a lower-lying area whose name is traditionally linked with leaves collecting there in autumn.

After crossing the busy Brugseweg, you reach the Canadian Memorial at Sint-Juliaan, better known as The Brooding Soldier and locally as De Canadien. It commemorates the Canadian troops who fought here during the Second Battle of Ypres. The figure faces the direction from which the German chlorine gas cloud came on 22 April 1915, during the first large-scale gas attack on the Western Front.

Farther on stands the memorial to the 1st Battalion Hertfordshire Regiment. On 31 July 1917, the opening day of the Third Battle of Ypres, the battalion suffered devastating losses in this area. The memorial stands close to the furthest point reached during the attack.

Steenakkermolen then comes into view. The original mill stood directly in the battle zone during the First Battle of Ypres and was destroyed in October 1914. The site became known as the Dodenmolen, or Death Mill. Beside the present mill are Hill 25 and Jan Fieuw’s studio, where battlefield material recovered from the landscape is transformed into contemporary remembrance art.

The paved roads eventually bring you towards Schreiboomstraat. Before the First World War, an ancient lime tree stood here and became the focus of several local legends. One story claimed that it already existed during the Battle of Westrozebeke in 1382, while others linked it with local justice or the death of Philip van Artevelde. The tree itself did not survive the war.

A short detour nearby leads to the memorial to Joseph Lister VC. The main route continues towards the old railway line, where a memorial column commemorates Frederick George Dancox VC.

Dancox fought here with the Worcestershire Regiment on 9 October 1917. During the attack near Poelkapelle, he reached a German position under heavy fire and forced its defenders to surrender. He was awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions. Only a few weeks later, on 30 November 1917, he was killed during the fighting around Cambrai.

The final section follows the former railway line back towards Langemark. This line once linked Ypres with Torhout and formed part of a wider connection towards Ostend. Built in the 19th century to improve transport through the region, it never achieved the success originally hoped for.

After railway traffic ended, the old trackbed was gradually redeveloped as a walking and cycling route. Its long, straight course makes for a quieter final section before you return to central Langemark and Vijverpark.

The walk therefore owes much of its appeal to the sequence of stories and remembrance sites rather than to dramatic scenery. The countryside remains open and rural, while the monuments repeatedly reveal how deeply the First World War shaped this landscape.