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?

Adventures in Europe: Waterloo and Mons, Belgium

Today I began my day again with some parking lot driving practice in the quiet of dawn.  Some times it feels like I'm making two steps forward and then one back, but at least the two steps forward are happening . . .

After breakfast I drove southwest to Waterloo, with one stop to put some gas in the tank.

The weather was a bit cold and blustery once I got to Waterloo, but I walked around outside for a little bit anyway.

Eventually I went into the heated comfort of the museum, which is one of the best museums I have ever been in (albeit pretty expensive at 16 euros). 

It includes a multisensory 3D movie of the battle, including the smell of fire where appropriate!  Besides the museum, the ticket includes entrance to a panoramic painting of the battle;

and access to the lion's mound, which was built as a memorial for a Dutch prince who was wounded during the battle.

From Waterloo, I drove further southwest.  After causing some traffic problems in a roundabout, I reached Mons.  I needed to do laundry, and hoped I would find a laundromat by driving around the outskirts of Mons.  Eventually the road I was on led me into a denser neighborhood than I wanted to be in, but I got myself turned around and as I was heading out of the town, sure enough I spotted a laundromat.  Moreover, it was relatively easy to pull over and park.

I did my laundry, and as it washed I drove under a bridge and practiced stopping and starting.  Somehow something clicked while I did this, and I finally felt confident that I could start out without stalling.  This was a big relief.

After my laundry was done, I drove east of the town to the Mons Hippodrome, for the horse races.  I had written down that the races began at 17:00, but it was actually 17:55, so I had some time on my hands.  Luckily the enclosed grandstands and concourse had free WiFi, so I used that while I waited. 

The fan facilities are lower key than at Northlands in Edmonton (no casino, for example), but they are nice enough.

The races themselves are not as enjoyable, at least they weren't for me, because they do not have a handy way to track the horses when they are on the other side of the track, and the horses don't wear different colour silks, so it is extremely difficult to tell the horses apart.

I just bet (and lost) on the first race.  I felt brave trying to place a bet in French, and as it was somehow I placed two bets by mistake (one to win and one to place).

After three races I left the track and drove to my accommodations for the night, a bed and breakfast just north of the French border called Kolibriehuys, which apparently means something like hummingbird house in Flemish.  My GPS took me into France to get there, and then back into Belgium on a single lane dirt farm road, which I hardly believed could even be a road!  The lady who runs Kolibriehuys laughed at me for following the GPS directions rather than the ones she had given me by email, but I found it well enough nonetheless.

Adventures in Europe: Tongeren, Belgium

From Aachen I drove a few kilometres into the Netherlands, and then south into Maastricht.  I left the highway to drive through the city, but I decided to skip stopping because it would mean finding parking.  Anyway, when I did my research there wasn't much in Maastricht I really wanted to see.  As it was, I had plenty of trouble just driving through it, and I literally pulled into a parking lot to practice starting up without stalling.  I did take this picture of a cool building I saw while stopped in traffic:

Out of Maastricht I was quickly in Belgium and took a nice little road for about 20 kilometres or so through a semi-rural area until I entered Tongeren.  I had never even heard of Tongeren before I planned this trip, but its a great little place with lots of history.

It claims to be the oldest town in Belgium, actually, and they have a statue of a local who led a victorious army in a fight against Julius Caesar (a character in the Asterix comic is based on him).

I will make sure to learn more about this place tomorrow, but I did make it here in time to check in and walk around some before sunset.