Another country but the food is still good!

Saturday, June 06, 2015

Bonjour!  (And I would say it in Dutch, as we have been in Belgium today, but I don’t know how!) (We knew heading to Belgium that part of the country spoke French and the other part spoke something else…and it turns out to be Dutch.  But as we are very far north, the part we visited today is Dutch speaking; the French speaking is in the south.  And we know absolutely NO words in Dutch!)

As we had had largish lunches yesterday, we ended up staying in the hotel last night, as neither of us was hungry at all.  Very strange.  We had a lovely late afternoon thunder storm, which cooled everything way down.  After something in the low 90’s yesterday, it’s not supposed to break 70 today.  But there was one clap of thunder that sounded like it was right next door and shot us both straight to our feet!

Lille's canal

Complete with lock!

L

Stunning memorial to resistance fighters in WWI

Memorial to carrier pigeons!

Up this morning at the usual time, and breakfast right on the dot at 8:00 a.m.  We then gathered up all our books and maps (which is a considerable collection by this time – and I thought we had mailed everything back to the U.S. from France!) and headed out to the car. 

Small Commonwealth cemetary

Stunning setting

Our first stop this morning was to find the local lavarie automatique – self-service laundromat, which according to the GPS is less than 2 km away.  Very easy to reach, and in a very nice area.  It looks nice and is open seven days a week, 7 a.m. – 8 p.m.  I was hoping that we’d have enough clean clothes to get back to Tucson, but as we’ve come up a few days short, I have one more opportunity to do local laundry.  What fun! The area we are staying in – Marcq, is really a beautiful suburb.  Some of the houses near our hotel are absolutely huge, and many have wonderful towers as well!  (I have always wanted a house with a tower…)  Their architecture is really nothing like that in Paris, but is very distinctive and vaguely reminiscent of what we remember of the Netherlands. 

From there, we decided to find the memorial in Lille to the resistance fighters who were executed by the Germans on 22 September 1915.  In the process, we not only found Lille’s citadel, but their river (the Deule), as well, and it’s very attractive.  The monument is in Champs de Mars field in front of the citadel, and we actually drove right past it looking for a place to park!  Just looking at the stances of the various men right before their execution by firing squad was rather unreal.  These men had been communicating information about the German movements and activities in Lille before being betrayed and captured.  Sad.  We took a walk around the area, and it was really lovely.  We also found a memorial to the carrier pigeons that were used in WWI!  Not sure I’ve ever seen a memorial to a carrier pigeon, but as Robert says, why not?

Bayernwald German trenches

Wouldn't like to live there...

From the park, we headed north out of Lille, heading to some WWI sites in the Ypres (spelled Ieper in Belgium) area.  In a very short time – I’m talking minutes here, we were in Belgium and getting very confused!  We weren’t sure what language we should use, as Belgium has two distinct parts.  We knew one was French, but had serious doubts about the second language. 

Truly bucolic countryside!

As we headed on back roads toward Ypres, there were cemeteries, markers and memorials everywhere.  They ranged from absolutely immaculately kept cemeteries for hundreds to thousands of people, to very small burial plots literally in the middle of a farmer’s field, with white picket fences around them.  All were very, very moving.  We walked through one such cemetery, beautifully kept up with lots of roses and flowers planted in front of all the graves.  There was quite a mixture – the English soldiers had their regimental seals, the Kiwis with the silver fern of New Zealand, the Canadians with a maple leaf.  And all too often a grave was marked “An unknown soldier” or “An unknown English soldier.”  Truly, what a terrible waste of lives.

Bayernwald continued

One of the concrete bunkers at Bayernwald

We stopped in the town of Kemmel to get some information and hopefully directions to the German trenches that were used as an overlook.  As it turned out, that’s where we had to get tickets, as the site has a scanner that admits people, and without a paid ticket, one can’t get in!  Who knew?  The site is probably 10+ miles from Kemmel, so we were lucky we stopped there!  (Also, the signage to sites in Belgium is not nearly as good as it is in France.)  As it is a Saturday, there were lots of people in town, and a tremendous number of people on bicycles everywhere!  There were pelotons going in every which direction, and truly, on some of those tiny back roads, I literally just pulled over and let them go past, as there wasn’t really room enough for the two of us.

We found Bayernwald trenches eventually, and there was actually a tourist bus there before us!  Fortunately, by the time we parked and walked to the site, the folks on the bus were heading out, which was nice.  We basically had the trenches to ourselves, and they were very interesting.  First of all, the parts of Belgium that we have seen so far are, for the most part, really flat; very little relief at all.  (It really reminds me a bit of Holland, which is also very flat.)  That makes what high spots there are very valuable, and Bayernwald is one of those.  It was mostly occupied by the Germans throughout WWI, even though the Allied troops tried repeatedly to drive them out.  This was finally accomplished by the Brits very near the end of the war. 

When the war ended, the site was basically covered over, and was re-discovered by a school teacher in 1971.  He purchased the parcel of ground and proceeded to have the trenches re-dug and had them set up as the historical records indicated.  After he died, they eventually found their way into the hands of a group of avid historians and historical restorers and it is now run by the Belgian government.  There was a series of trenches with concrete bunkers every so often, for protection from shelling and attack.  Hard to imagine this place as a good lookout position, but obviously it was.

We very much enjoyed Ypres!

Market day in Ypres

We then headed into Ypres, which is a really lovely small-size city, where we decided to have lunch.  We entered through the Lille gate, which has a nice wall in front of it, and a moat, and drove toward the city’s famous Cloth Hall, which is gorgeous.  It was, of course, destroyed during the war and since rebuilt, and is home to the “In Flanders Fields” museum.  Truly stunning, and I hate to admit it, but we are now traveling home with definitely more poppies than we came with…

R with today's local beer!

R's chicken salad

My excellent salad!

We were actually able to find an on-street parking place right in front of the Cloth Hall, where there was also the weekly marketing going on.  The square is really lovely (even full of tents and produce!) and we decided to have a light lunch there.  Robert spotted a small but modern place advertising salads, sandwiches and soup, and in we went.  Wow!  Great lunch!  We both had salads.  Robert’s chicken salad came with lettuce, tomato, curried chicken, hard boiled egg, onions, pineapple and potato salad.  My salad had lettuce, tomato, goat cheese, onion, bacon, and potato salad.  I think we’re actually going to be able to squeeze in dinner tonight, which is good, as I wanted to get back to Lille!  (Oh!  A note:  Cobbles…are the PITS!  When we were walking yesterday in Arras, the cobbles were everywhere, and in Ypres, there are even more!  I don’t know how many people must go over on an annual basis, but I know the number is not small.  Also, I now have much more appreciation of the riders of the Spring Classic bike races and the Tour de France, as riding a bike over these puppies would definitely be difficult!  Rider Frank Schleck went over a few years ago up in this direction, and they found his collarbone in three separate places!  Now I understand why!) 

After lunch, we proceeded around the square, Robert to take pictures, and me to look for Belgian chocolate. 

Memorial gate thanking the Brits

Beautiful main square

(The only problem is, every shop is marked “The BEST” – and I know that can’t be totally true, but we did get some very good chocolate to munch on our way back to Lille…)

We then took some more wonderful back roads to wind our way back to the hotel, where we are now watching Serena Williams not quite shellac Lucie Safarova…oh well!  Naps first, and then, with any luck at all, back to Lille on the tram!  What fun!

More later!

Lots and lots of love!

m

xxx