Wout Desmet

My great-grandfather Achiel was a farmhand near Passendale when the war came to his fields in 1917, and my family still farms land where the plough turns up shell casings every spring. So the First World War is not an abstract subject for me. I studied history in Ghent, worked as an educator at the In Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres for four years and now live in Bruges with my wife and our two boys. I guide two very different things: the battlefields of the Westhoek, and the Flemish painters of the 1400s, which were my second love at university. Both are about looking closely. I speak Dutch, English and French. Just send me the name and regiment beforehand. I guide live on video now, walking Bruges with my phone and answering your questions in real time.