Ostend City Museum

The City Museum (Stadsmuseum) is the place to understand how a fortified fishing port became the Queen of the Belgian seaside resorts. It is housed in Huize Louise-Marie, a historic town house on the Langestraat, the old street running parallel to the harbour.

The collection covers the growth of the city, fishing and shipping, the royal family’s long attachment to Ostend and the rise of seaside tourism, through objects, posters, photographs and film. Queen Louise-Marie, Belgium’s first queen, who loved the town, acts as your guide through the rooms. Until 9 November 2026 a temporary exhibition marks a hundred years since the death of Paster Pype, the much-loved priest of Ostend’s fishermen.

It is a modest, local museum rather than a blockbuster, and an hour is plenty. Note that it closes over lunch and on Tuesdays. Visitors under 19 go in free, and the Langestraat itself, with its bars and restaurants, is worth a wander afterwards.