Ostend annually hosts arts festival The Crystal Ship. Over the years it has transformed the Belgian coastal town into one of the country’s street art hot spots. A fun and unique way to discover the masterpieces spread throughout the city is by taking a walk guided by a chatbot.
The Crystal Ship arts festival
The Crystal Ship is organised annually in Ostend since 2016. The festival that focuses on art created in the public space skipped a year due to the corona pandemic, but even in 2020 the organisation made sure some new works popped up. On our walk we even saw Helen Bur put the last hand to her huge portrait of Arno, singer and citizen of Ostend, on the wall of the city hall.
The Crystal Ship transformed Ostend in a big open arts museum that you can visit for free. Even when you’re not doing a street art tour of the city, it’s good to keep your eyes open for it at all times when in Ostend, as marvellous pieces can be found throughout town.
Because of The Crystal Ship the cityscape of Ostend is ever-changing. Some creations might only be there during the festival itself, while others rest in place for years. Apart from murals, the festival also features sculptures and installations. But we didn’t see many of them on our walk and I assume they disappear faster out of the streets than the paintings. Anyway, keep in mind that when you go for your street art walk some of the works I saw, might already have disappeared or been replaced. The portrait of Arno on the city hall, for instance, was painted over an earlier Crystal Ship mural.
The street art tour with the virtual tour guide
Instead of just following a map, you can now take a street art tour in Ostend with a virtual tour guide. By surfing to m.me/streetartoostende the guide comes to life and sends you messages through Facebook Messenger. For now, I believe the virtual tour guide is only available in Dutch (although we received one random message in German during our walk). The tour is completely free.
The walk starts at the tourism office in the city centre and close to the boardwalk. The tour is 7,5 kilometres, but can be extended with another 4 if you choose to take the ferry to the Oosteroever. We didn’t do this, as it was already almost dusk when we arrived at this point and we were going for a walk on the Oosteroever the next day anyway. But if you’re up for it, I would certainly recommend it. We spotted some of the Crystal Ship murals when we were there and really liked them.
The rest of the walk is all in the city centre and on or around Ostend’s boardwalk. The virtual tour guide gives you instructions on how to walk, but also provides background information about the works of arts you pass. As such, we discovered that the huge portrait of an elderly couple on the wall of a hotel wasn’t just a painting of random people. No, the people depicted were two actual citizens of the city who had been in love for years (#couplegoals).
Chatbot or map
The fun facts we got from the virtual tour guide were what made this way of doing the walk worthwhile. We got to know a lot about the works of art you don’t discover when you’re just walking around with a map by yourself. It made the tour and the works of art more interesting.
The chatbot also caters your needs. If you indicate that you need a break, the guide sends you some tips for cafes and restaurants near you and pauses the tour until you’re ready again. You can also always ask the chatbot how far you still have to walk.
Although I would definitely recommend to do the street art tour with the virtual guide, I would also advise you to get the map on the website of Visit Oostende. You receive it if you fill in your email address. While the chatbot works great most of the time and the instructions are clear, we experienced one hiccup. At one point the next message didn’t come through and when we asked the chatbot for help, it skipped one message. We knew what we had to see, but didn’t receive the instruction on how to get there, so the map came in handy.
Can’t get enough of Ostend’s open air gallery? I can’t blame you. On the map you’ll find many more works of art you didn’t pass during the walking tour. You can choose which pieces you still want to see and walk there yourself. You can also do the 26 kilometres bike route that is included on the map. When you receive the email with the map from Visit Oostende, there is also a free gpx-file included for the bicycle route.
Looking for a day trip in nature along the Belgian coast? Check out the Zwin Nature Park.
Want to discover more street art? Discover Belgian ghost town Doel.
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