Adventures in Europe: Ypres/Ieper, Belgium

The couple who own and run Kolibriehuys are around 60 years old and have lived in that part of Belgium for a long time, maybe their whole lives.  They obviously love talking to their visitors, because they had me sit with them over dinner and gave me beers to drink, and then ate breakfast with me and talked with me for a long while.  I tend to not like people as much as most, but for some reason I've always enjoyed chatting with the owners of beds and breakfasts, maybe because they are usually interesting people.

Anyway, I learned a lot from them about Belgium and Europe, and they asked me lots of questions about Canada, etc.  Finally I said I had better go, so I paid up and headed north around Ieper (as Ypres is officially known in Flemish) and to my first stop of the day, Essex Cemetery.

I had planned myself a little route that would let me see some of the most significant World War I sites (mostly cemeteries and memorials) around Ieper.  It also happened to be a route that did wonders for my manual car driving confidence, since it required lots of stopping and starting, including on hills, gravel, etc., but without significant traffic causing me stress.  I am relieved to say I went the whole day without stalling!

Essex Cemetery is the spot where John McCrae wrote In Flanders Fields, and also were numerous men are buried, including a soldier who was only fifteen when he died (presumably he had lied about his age).

From there I drove to the largest Germany cemetery in Flanders called Langemark Cemetery.  There are 44,000 soldiers buried in this cemetery alone!

Next I drove to a village called Poelkapelle where there is a memorial to a French airman named Guynemer;

and also a tank memorial.

Just down the road from the Guynemer memorial is a place called Vancouver Corner, where there is a Canadian memorial known as the Brooding Soldier.

In terms of artistic value, this was probably the most impressive memorial I saw today.

 

Not far from Vancouver Corner, although I had some trouble getting there, is Tyne Cot cemetery.

It is one of the most emotional places I have ever been.  It brought me to tears.

There are actually many times fewer men buried here than at Langemark, but there are far more headstones, and many of the headstones represent more than one person.

As I drove from Tyne Cot I happened to see a sign for a memorial for the Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry, which is Edmonton's local regiment.  I followed the signs and took some back roads to find it.  Once there I left a poppy.

Next I visited the Commonwealth cemetery at Hooge Crater;

 

then the Canadian memorial at Hill 62 (on Canadalaan);

and finally Hill 60;

before heading into Ieper itself.

In Ieper, I parked, and visited the Lille Gate, which holds historical significance long before WWI, but also has yet another Commonwealth cemetery nearby.

Then I drove further into the city, parked, and walked to the Menin Gate, which is maybe the largest memorial for British, Canadian, and Australian soldiers in Belgium.

Anyway, it's quite something, and also forms part of Ieper's historic wall.

Around 15:30 I went to the In Flanders Field museum, which is in Ieper's old cloth factory complex (quite something in itself!).

I also paid an additional 2 euros to climb the bell tower, which was of course right up my alley.

The tower was excellent, and I'm glad they charge extra for it, because it meant I got it largely to myself, even though there were many people in the museum.

It houses a carillon, that rang twice when I was up there and was really, really loud.

The museum is quite superb, and I think manages to strike a perfect tone when it comes to World War I, and really war in general. Not surprisingly, Ieper is a really war-hating city, since it was basically completely destroyed in the war.  Interestingly I learned that some British, including Winston Churchill, wanted it to be left destroyed as a memorial, but the citizens rebuilt, although obviously there are still countless reminders everywhere of the destruction that happened.

There was also a really amazing temporary exhibit in the museum, which was the work of an artist/historian/genealogist, who took a group photo of some WWI soldiers, including his grandfather or great-grandfather, and traced the lives of each man and his family in a family tree.  Obviously in a few words I cannot explain it all or capture its emotive power, but in essence the exhibit provided a very unique perspective on the impact war has on families.

After the museum, I walked around the town some more, got some dinner, and then headed to the Menin Gate.  At 20:00, every single day, the Last Post is played at the gate.  Today, the day before Armistice Day, it was presumably a much bigger deal than normal, and there were two military bands, and some veterans, and hundreds if not thousands of people.

I met a New Zealand soldier who had come to Europe for rugby and was now here to watch the ceremonies.  What I assume is usually just a few minutes, went well over half an hour, with countless wreathes being laid.  The bands played numerous songs, including my favorite bagpipes song, Highland Cathedral, which made me very happy.

The whole day had a really profound impact on me.  The idiocy of WWI really struck me as I saw the thousands of graves, and read how most of these men had died for no strategic reason.  So many of the graves say "a soldier of the great war," "known unto God," because they have no idea whose body is buried there.  Other stones represent more than one dead person, I think I saw one stone that said "eight soldiers of the great war."  I really understand why people called it the "war to end all wars," and how Europe possibly ended up back at war twenty years later I do not understand.  I certainly feel a lot more sympathetic towards people like Neville Chamberlain now, who were so desperate to avoid conflict again.  Even today in the streets of Ieper it is obvious how brutalizing WWI was; how much more so in 1938?