The best road cycling routes around Fleury-Devant-Douaumont

The museum offers a good insight into soldiers' lives during World War I. Using an augmented reality helmet, visitors can travel through the underground citadel. Admission is €16 per person (as of October 2025). However, for background information, it is recommended to visit the Verdun Memorial beforehand.

This is absolutely amazing!

On June 23, during the lightning German advance, the assault waves crossed Fleury and reached the Froidterre fortification. Along the way, they encountered fierce pockets of resistance. On the southern slope of the Ravin des Vignes, 400 Poilus (French infantrymen) dug in a vaulted gallery, buried 12 meters underground, recognizable from afar by its four ventilation shafts. In the stifling, overcrowded June days, the survivors, wounded or not, struggled to breathe, watching for the moment when they might be buried, gassed, or burned alive by flamethrowers. Their salvation came on June 23, when the 114th Battalion of Alpine Chasseurs heroically cleared the entrances, bayonets fixed.

The Ossuary of Douaumont is an impressive memorial that holds the remains of more than 130,000 unknown French and German soldiers who died during the Battle of Verdun (1916). The bones are visible through small windows in the base – a confronting reminder of the horrors of war. In front of the ossuary is the Nécropole nationale de Douaumont, the largest French military cemetery of the First World War, with 16,142 graves, including a Muslim and Jewish plot. The complex was recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2023.

The Mémorial de Verdun, located near the ruined village of Fleury-devant-Douaumont, is a leading museum and commemoration site for the Battle of Verdun (1916). The museum displays more than 2,000 objects and uses authentic objects, photographs and audiovisual installations to show how French and German soldiers experienced this battle – in the exact same place where they fought.

Located near the Porte Chaussée and the Verdun War Memorial, this contemporary metal sculpture was designed by the artist Jean-No and created by students from the Lycée Professionnel Eugène Freyssinet. Created to mark the centenary of the Battle of Verdun, it symbolises the living memory of the conflict. The installation connects the past and the future through education and art.

Inaugurated in 1928, this war memorial in Verdun honours the city’s inhabitants who died for France in both world wars. It was built on the remains of a military butcher’s shop, on the crescent of the Chaussée, a 17th-century fortification. The sculpture depicts five soldiers – a cavalier, an engineer, an infantryman (poilu), an artilleryman and a territorial – forming a symbolic wall under the motto of Verdun: “On ne passe pas”.

Riverside promenade on the Meuse, with freight hotel and restaurant barges.