Friday March 30, 2018 Sue’s
&70th BIRTHDAY!!!! WW
I driving tour Ieper (Ypres) to Amiens March 20, 2018
We made a switch from WW I battle sites to the 15th
century battle site at Agincourt (Azincourt) between the English led by King
Henry V and the French led by a group of nobles. This battle was part of the 100 Years’
War. There are questions about where the
battle actually took place, there is a marker, and that is good enough for
me. I was going to stop at the museum to
ask about the location of the monument, but thanks to my superior planning, the
museum was closed. But we managed to
stumble upon the monument, mission accomplished.
Next we were off to the French National Cemetery Notre-Dame
de Lorette. This is the largest French
military cemetery. It is an impressive
place, and we had a sunny day for our visit.
We had a “small” cup of coffee at a café on site; that is about all you
can get in France.
The Canadian National Vimy Memorial+Trench is only about 15
minutes from Notre-Dame de Lorette. This
is another very large site. There is a
new visitor center that provides tours of a trench and an approach tunnel that
ran between the front and reserve lines.
The Memorial is mounted on the crest of Vimy Ridge that was the focus of
fighting between the Germans and the Canadians.
We made a stop at the German cemetery Cimetière militaire
allemand de Neuville-Saint-Vaast along the way to Carrière Wellington. As you might imagine the German cemeteries do
not have many large memorial structures.
The basic nature of the cemetery confers its own type of solemnity.
Our next stop was the Carrière Wellington. This was an underground quarry that the
United Kingdom and Germans used as shelters and places to launch attacks. Our next stop was the Thiepval Memorial. This memorial commemorates the over 72,000
United Kingdom soldiers that have no known grave. Typically WW I battles lasted for weeks to
months of fighting between the trench lines.
It was getting late so we passed up visiting the Lochnagar
Crater and headed for the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Brebières in Albert, maybe
next time. This church had its statue of
Mary on the steeple knocked over so that it lay horizontal by German shelling. The steeple was the tallest thing in the area
and used as a guide post by the Allied troops.
We entered the coordinates into the GPS and set off, it shouldn’t have
taken too long. We actually saw a church
with a gold statue as we were driving to what we though was our goal. I’ll shorten the story, I must have made a
mistake with the coordinates. We ended
up turning down a farmers muddy lane, so after a course correction we found the
church. It is in the middle of a busy
town. I thought I took a photo, but can’t
find it now. We actually haven’t had too
many problems using the car’s GPS. After
that we went to our hotel in Amiens.
Tomorrow we will spend the day driving to sites around Amiens. There is a 1001 painting in Amiens, but the
museum is closed until the end of 2019.
Our experience with museum projects is that they are not completed on schedule. Another reason to come back.
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