Monday June 12, 2023 Amiens WW I tour – there are two days in this one post Tuesday June 13 Ypres below
Jude arrived Sunday June 11 at Amsterdam Centraal Station at about 16:00. We walked about 10 min. to Enterprise Rental Car to pick up our car. We drove to our apartment and parked the car. We went out to Frenzi, one of our favorite restaurants for dinner. The next morning Jude and I left around 7:00 to visit WW I sites in Belgium and France. Jude did the driving. The first stop was The Trench of Death near Diksmuide, Belgium. It was about a 3.5 hour drive. Sue and I tried to visit back in 2018, but it was closed because it had been rented by a private group. As you can see from the photos it is a WW I trench system. The Belgians and the Germans had trench systems here from 1915-1918 on the River Yser. The site has displays of some of the equipment and items found at the site.
Our next stop was the German Langemark Cemetery, it was about a half hour drive from the Trench. I’m running out of steam and I haven’t added many comments to these photos. I think the photos of the information panels at the cemetery should provide more than you want to know. If not Wikipedia is always available. It is an impressive place. Langemark is one of the largest (not the largest) WW I German Cemeteries.
The Georges Guynemer Memorial is about a 10 min. drive from Langemark Cemetery. It is located in the middle of a round-about, more about those in a minute. Guynemer was a French fighter ace with 54 victories during World War I, and a French national hero at the time of his death. He was reported missing in action over this part of the Ypres Salient on 11 September 1917. That is why the memorial is located here. Our next stop was at the Saint-Charles de Potyze French Military Cemetery. It was again, only about a 10 min. drive. There are military cemeteries and memorials all over this area. Our next stop was at the Ypres Grote Markt, another 10 min. drive. We would stay overnight in Ypres on our second night, today it was just to get lunch at the Ypresburger Grote Markt. You do have to pay to park in the Markt during the day, so we found the machine to get a ticket. Unfortunately the credit card reader wasn’t working, and we didn’t have a Euro coin to buy a ticket. So I stayed at the car while Jude went to buy us lunch. No one came by to check if we had a ticket, so Jude got us a couple of cheeseburgers, and we were off to our next site, the Ploegsteert Memorial to the Missing. But on the way there we saw another tower so we had to stop. This was the Island of Ireland Peace Park. I took way too many photos, so I’ll let them do the talking.
Then it was off to the scheduled site The Ploegsteert Memorial to the Missing. This was another military cemetery, not very large, but it had a large structure that was different from the many military cemeteries we drove by. After that we were off for a 2 hr. drive to Amiens to visit the Musée de Picardie to see a 1001 painting. The museum was closed on Monday. I know, it’s hard to believe that I screwed up, but I did. We had planned to stay overnight in Amiens anyway. We walked around a bit so I could take more photos, mostly of the Cathedral. We had a pizza for dinner, and of course beer.
Tuesday June 13, 2023 Amiens-Ypers WW I tour
The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel. We left our backpacks at the hotel, and were off to the Musée de Picardie to see my 1001 painting. It is a very nice museum, and my original plan had been to spend two hours taking photos of everything, as I usually do. Today it was find # 735 of the 1001 painting "Melancholy" by Constance Marie Charpentier and then be off to the Glade of the Armistice. I did take a few photos, and then we were off for the 1.5 hr. drive to the Galde. Again, Sue and I had visited in 2018, when I took a photo of just about everything. So this time I didn’t take many. The museum has been changed because of Covid.
From the Glade we drove to the Canadian National Vimy Memorial, it took about an hour. On both our drives to Amiens, the Glade and back to Ypres the roads had roundabouts. The distance between roundabouts was typically 2.5 km. So it was never like driving on our Interstate highways where you use cruise control and try not to fall asleep at the wheel. Because every 2-3 minutes you slow down (almost never stop) to go around the roundabout and then speed up again. The longest we went w/o a roundabout was 64 km at 120 km/hr.
Back to the Canadian National Vimy Memorial, it covers a large area. We walked from the large monument to the visitor’s center and then to a cemetery. You can take tours of the rebuilt trenches and a tunnel, which Sue and I did, but Jude and I did not. We timed our return to Ypres to arrive about 18:00 when parking in the Grote Markt is free, because our hotel is just off the Markt. Jude drove through the entire Markt and found the LAST parking spot. We checked into our hotel, I had to change rooms because mine had a swarm of flies. As a result we missed the Last Post Ceremony at the Menin Gate. This Ceremony remembers and honors the soldiers of WW I, and has bee performed every evening since 1928.
We picked one of the many restaurants around the Markt and had a great meal. We sat next to two Canadians, one was very talkative, and has been to Ypres several times. This time he brought his friend.
The next morning, after a nice buffet breakfast at our hotel we/Jude drove back to Amsterdam. The drive took about 3.5 hr. We returned the rental car at Centraal Station and walked back to Jim and Nanny’s apartment. That evening the three of us went to dinner at an Italian restaurant that we’ve been to before. It was a great trip.
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