And so to France, on to Belgium and WW1 history

Waiting in Big Ted at Dover for our crossing to Calais

A great driving day on Sunday, just as well, as despite looking at the forecast for the Channel mid week, and noting lots of wind on Friday, and Sunday with Saturday being calm, we forgot this, and booked for Sunday! We arrived at Calais in good time and were offered a spot on the late running 13.45 sailing, leaving at 14.00. Obviously we said yes, but I am still a bit confused as to how the hour and a half sailing got us in at 17.00 (add an hour for Europe but even so!) 

Arriving at Calais, as viewed through a very mucky window on the ferry

Our overnight Aire in Gravelines, France

The crossing was absolutely fine and we headed off to first of four possible free parking areas. This one in Gravelines was lovely and had loads of space. (50°58'11.7"N 2°07'55.8"E)We thought we’d have time for a little amble but the rain had other ideas, so we locked the door, opened the wine and heated the curry leftovers in their metal foil trays in a water bath in the frying pan. Actually worked very well!

Walking into the walled town of Ypres, Belgium

Not planning on staying long in France we popped Carrefour in the sat nav and headed off to buy wine. They didn’t have our favourite, but did have our second favourite, in a 10l box, and some of our favourite €1.50 fizz. Along with some duck pate, a baguette and some soft cheese. Good to be back!

With that we headed off to Ypres or Ieper depending on which map or road signs you read, but definitely not ‘wipers’ A small campsite, with a lovely lady on reception, and a 10 minute walk to the Menin Gate. €15 a night, with electricity and WiFi, we’ll break ourselves in gently! (50°50'47.8"N 2°53'51.1"E)

The rebuilt Menin Gate at Ypres. It was through here that thousands of Allied troops marched to their deaths at the start of the Great War

Looking down at the exit from the town at the Menin Gate

We had lunch before walking into a very pretty town. Churchill had wanted to leave it destroyed, as a monument, but the locals wanted it rebuilt exactly as it had been, and they’ve done a very good job of it, including the church of St-Maarten en St-Niklasskerk, which had been a cathedral until 1797. It was almost totally destroyed, but as the ‘Lonely Planet’ says “reconstruction has beautifully restored its soaring Gothic interior; it’s hard to believe that the church was built in the 20th century.”

And here's an old photo from 1914. The lions were severely damaged during the war and those in the photo above are exact replicas carved from similar stone. The originals were restored by the Australians and are now outside a museum in Canberra, Australia

The Lakenhalle (Cloth Hall) today

We went into the ‘In Flanders Field’ Museum, which was very good, but had too much to see in one visit, despite the light relief of a trip up the tower to look over the area. It is however that from this tower once every three years they have the ‘cat festival ‘ where they used to throw cats from, to keep evil spirits away. Fortunately now it’s only toy cats but I’m still not sure I can feel at home in any town, however pretty, where they used to throw live cats from a high tower!

Here's how it looked in 1911 - pretty similar

But here's how it looked after the Great War

Exhausted and emotionally drained we went back to Ted, a quick dash, after dinner, to Aldi for supplies before going back in to the Menin Gate. This is a must, in case you weren’t feeling somber enough. The Menin Gate is inscribed with 54,896 names of lost British and Commonwealth troops whose bodies were never found. At 20.00 every night since 1928 they have played the last post as a memorial to those people. Last night, a grey Monday in October we didn’t expect much, however the 6 coaches had other ideas. There were a group of Canadian soldiers, in kilts, one of whom played the bagpipes after the buglers had finished bugling, before the others laid a wreathe followed by perhaps a dozen other wreaths laid by a mixture of soldiers and children. All very thought provoking.

An aerial view of the destruction of Ypres before it was rebuilt. All these photos are from the 'In Flanders Field' museum

View from the top of the tower over Grote Market

Today we went out in Ted to Tyne Cot Cemetery, the worlds biggest British Commonwealth war cemetery with nearly 12000 graves, the newest of which are less than a year old. We managed to join a free tour with Matthew, one of the Commonwealth war Graves Commission interns who was incredibly interesting. One of the things he told us about was a grave, marked as an unknown soldier, until last year, who has been identified by both a research team in the U.K. and an 18 year old Belgian lad working independently. His name is still on the Menin Gate as missing, but they can’t really go and cross him off! There are also another nearly 35,000 lost-in-action names that wouldn’t fit on the Menin Gate! Such huge numbers are horrible, they think there are 30,000 odd bodies still out there which will take a while with only about 40 being found per year.

Poster at the top of the tower identifying the things we want to go and see

And the view we can see today

Tomorrow the plan was to go to Brussels, we had a guide lined up for Thursday to show us round, but Brussels would appear the most motorhome unfriendly place we have tried to stay, so looks like we will have to cancel the slightly peculiar sounding Freddie, until next time when with a little more forward planning we may be able to find somewhere to stay closer than an hour away.

The rebuilt cathedral. You'd never know how new it is

Inside the cathedral

The Menin Gate at night, just before the Last Post was performed

The 9m high cross of sacrifice at the Tyne Cot cemetery. It was built over one of the German pill boxes and a bit of it is still exposed as a reminder, its that dark square you can see. King George V stated that it should be built in this way after visiting in 1922

The sheer scale of this cemetery cannot be envisaged from a photograph, but this panorama gives some impression

Three new graves from November 2018 after 3 bodies were uncovered during building works in a nearby village 

One of three German pill boxes left in the cemetery, one of which is beneath the cross of sacrifice. The damage from the fighting clearly evident.

Its not hard to see why the Germans took control of this ground. In a virtually flat landscape any rise was considered a major military advantage. This hill on which Tyne Cot cemetery now stands was a German stronghold that was taken by the Allies (many New Zealanders and Australian among them) at huge loss of life. This photo is the view from the German pill box in the above photo. There's trees, buildings and grass today where only cratered and muddy fields were then. The photo doesn't really show it, but the view it commands is amazing. Now just imagine running up this incline in thick mud into massive machine gun fire to take this hill. Amazingly it was taken and used as a field hospital for a time, but later it was lost to the Germans again. It illustrates clearly the futility of war and the massive price paid by that generation. We really must never forget.

A 20 second video of the start of the Last Post performed every night at 8:00pm



If you've read this far, here is a post script from Jackie:

Just had a very stressful evening, went back to the Menin Gate for the last post, felt jostled, when I looked my bag was open. I couldn’t find my glasses or purse. B came back to the van, and found my glasses on the table, while I said to the teens behind me, how there was no money, only cards, so a reward if one of them found it. Spoke to their teacher who was going to speak to them all on the coach, spoke to a policeman who lost interest when I said it was only my cards, not passport or anything.

Hunted all the way back with head torches, searched Ted, finally emptied my handbag and it was stuffed right into a pocket..... I just feel so bad for everyone that might be concerned for me, very relieved, but so mistrustful.