In the footsteps of Marie Curie

Did you know that the famous scientist Marie Curie was active here in West Flanders during WWI! With this cycle route you visit some places where she used her discoveries to help wounded soldiers. With her radiology equipment Curie could see where bullets and schrapnel were stuck in the body and she could identify complex fractures. From December 1914, when she went to Veurne at the request of Frans Daels, Curie went on mission 45 times. She drove to the front for thirty missions. Eleven times, Curie went on a mission to the front lines at the Westhoek. Alexandre Millerand, the French Minister of War, saw to it that Curie with her radiology cars could reach close to the front lines. That a woman was so close to the fight was very unusual. That it was a double Nobel Prize winner, that was totally unseen. Discover more of this region, period and this remarkable woman through this bike tour.