My grandfather Reginald James survived the First World War. I’ve never found out how because he died when I was 11 and I cannot recall the long conversations he used to have with my father, now also dead, about his wartime experiences when we used to visit him at his little cottage in Feock, Cornwall.

I know he was at Ypres and ran the ammunition and supplies up to the frontline on horseback. He had to ride through Hellfire Corner – a road and rail crossing just outside the town – at full gallop to avoid the German shells. Hellfire Corner has been described as the most dangerous place on the planet in the summer of 1917 during the height of the fighting.

How anyone survived the hell of the First World War is a mystery. Nearly 800,000 British troops were killed – twice as many were wounded – during the four-year conflict, most of them on the infamous Western Front.

I guess grandpa James was just lucky, which makes me lucky to be even writing this.

Tours of the battlefields, cemeteries, and museums in and around Ypres are big business. The town of Ypres, or Ieper as the Belgians rightly call it, relies on them for its livelihood and the huge numbers of visitors they attract.

Now Ypres is bracing itself for the huge influx of visitors expected for the centenary commemorations of the outbreak of the First World War which take place this summer. Many will come, as I did, to visit the graves of their ancestors who were killed in the conflict.

On my mother’s side my great-grandfather Bombardier Archie Williams was killed on the Western Front in June 1917 and it was my mission to find his grave. He is buried at the Vlamertinghe Military Cemetery, where I located his grave with the help of the cemetery registers.

Sadly many of the headstones have now been eroded over the years so that the names are difficult or sometimes impossible to distinguish. There will be plenty of work for the local engravers during the next few months to get them ready for the centenary.

This was followed by a visit to Hellfire Corner which my grandfather had to endure. It is marked as such on the map, but is now just a huge roundabout outside Ypres with unfortunately no indication of the important role this spot had to play in the conflict.

Many events are planned this year and my trip to Ypres, organised by Tour Flanders which promotes the area as a tourist destination, was a prelude to the commemorations which start in July and continue with various events until November 2015.

Before the Germans destroyed it Ypres was a very prosperous town owing to its cloth industry. Today it is again a very prosperous town with chic boutiques and posh restaurants. On our first night we dined at Pacific Eiland, one of the poshest, in the middle of a moat around the fortified town where we had a fabulous feast.

After about an hour of al fresco hors d’oeuvres, which involved oysters, foie gras and pink champagne, we settled inside the restaurant and were treated to the finest steaks and fish dishes of the region.

Walking around Ypres it is difficult to believe that this town was flattened by the German bombardment during the Great War. Hardly a wall withstood the battery.

Yet it has been completely reconstructed and the former cloth hall still retains its iconic grandeur as the centrepiece of the town. It’s now the home of the Flanders Field Museum, a £3million wonder of modern interactive museum technology dedicated to the men and women who served and perished in the First World War. Our press party donned microchipped poppy bracelets which enabled us to follow the personal recollections of some of the participants in the war. We were also fitted with headphones so we could pick up the commentary of our guide when out of earshot.

We lunched at the Brasserie Kazematten restaurant in Ypres, part of the St Bernadus Brewery at nearby Watou, which brews the trappist beer. It was created from one of the cavernous storage spaces in the ramparts of the town.

It was the place where a printing press was discovered and where the Wipers Times was produced, the legendary spoof trench newspaper which coupled black humour with a light-hearted disrespect for the WW1 officers who tried to ban it.

One of the main features of Ypres is The Menin Gate, a vast monumental arch inscribed with the names of the thousands who died in the Great War who have no grave.

It’s made of Portland stone and at 8pm every night without fail buglers from the local fire brigade sound ‘The Last Post’ to remember the war dead.

There are hundreds of cemeteries in the area around Ypres containing thousands of graves marked by headstones – and all made of Portland stone.

Just outside Ypres is Tyne Cot, the largest British war cemetery in the world, where almost 12,000 thousands gravestones are laid out in semi-circles. Just a few thousand graves fewer is Lijssenthoek near Poperinge which contains almost 11,000 graves.

We also visited the Passchendaele Museum, another memorial to the Great War.

Millions have been spent on it to provide an authentic trench war experience. Our party was visiting at the start of the hop-picking season and this area of Belgium is the centre of the industry. Hops are the main ingredient of Belgium’s famous trappist beers, made originally by the monks in the monasteries but now big business with export trade throughout the world.

Our final stop on the tour was at Talbot House which was celebrating the start of the hop-picking season.

It is a must visit on anyone’s itinerary.

It is a located in a little town called Poperinge and was set up by two army chaplains, Philip ‘Tubby’ Clayton and Neville Talbot, as a club for soldiers and a respite from the horrors of war.

It has a little chapel at the top of the house, and a lovely little garden where English tea is usually served.

You can also stay here from as little as £35 a night.

Getaway

P&O Ferries offers up to 23 return crossings a day between Dover and Calais. Crossing time is approximately 90 minutes and there is a departure every 45 minutes at peak times.

Prices start at £35 each way for a car and up to nine passengers.

Club Lounge, which includes newspapers, tea, coffee, and a glass of Champagne, is £12 each way and £6 per vehicle each way booked in advance. Priority Loading is an additional £12 per car each way. Full details at poferries.com or by telephoning 08716 646464.

During our visit we stayed at the Novotel  Hotel Ypres courtesy of Tourism Flanders where rooms start at £75 per night.

For more about travelling to Ypres and the Flanders Fields see  visitflanders.co.uk/discover/flanders-fields/