Waterloo

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Started off cold this morning, with a dusting of snow still on the ground from last night. We travelled down to the Waterloo battlefield sites today ... and were surprisingly impressed. The battlefield complex is not at all like you would think it would be ... kind of like Gettysburg. Instead, it is a visitors center, a huge pyramid with a lion on top that overlooks the main battlefield, a cyclorama and a wax museum.

We started off in the visitors center with a surprisingly good movie about the battle. I think this movie featured some of the reenacters in the footage and it was narrated by a historian. The next movie featured excerpts from a Waterloo movie that was shot in Russia. It was good too. After both of these movies, even I had a good idea what had happened and why. I had no idea that the tactic to survive a cavalry charge was to form defensive squares ... but that seems to have saved the day for the British. And unfortunate for Napoleon that all of the countries of Europe were determined to defeat him .. He really never had a long term chance, though he nearly won this battle.

Next, we decided to climb the Lion Hill. This is the main memorial monument of the Battle of Waterloo and it is built on the spot where the Prince of Orange was wounded. King William I of the Netherlands ordered the construction of this monument in 1820, to commemorate bravery of his son. The construction started in 1824 and was finished in November 1826. The dirt for the hill came from the fields between the "Haie Sainte" farm and the sunken lane behind which the Duke of Wellington had strategically positioned his troops. There are 226 stairs leading to the top of the hill. Once you are up there, you can't see the lion, but you get wide ranging panoramic views of the battlefield. The climb was surprisingly difficult ... Not sure if it was because it was cold, it was really that steep and long, or just a week on vacation - but we were both winded when we got to the top. Amazing how far you can see, and amazing to think about all of the soldiers coming to that place for this battle ... how they got there, and how they managed to fight.

Next they had a Cyclorama! Well, it was close to a cyclorama .. It had the circular painting behind the diorama and a battle soundtrack. It was missing the Gone with the Wind addition and the motorized platform to turn you that the Atlanta cyclorama has ... But it was pretty impressive all the same.

On our way back from Waterloo, we experienced out first Belgian traffic jam. I took the best picture of it that I could, but have decided that I am perhaps the worst photographer ever. It seemed like it took forever to get through the traffic. Just for sport, Garmin kept offering alternate routes as we sat there. We thought about getting off the interstate and going cross country ... But just as we were ready to do that, the traffic cleared. We did have some Garmin detour magic today though ... A couple of the roads we needed to be on were closed or being worked on, so we would divert to an alternate route. Sometimes these routes turn out to be OK, and sometimes you have to back up and try again. One route Garmin wanted to take us on today was going along fine, and then the road started to get narrower and narrower, and then there was a gravel path. Rule #1 was invoked .. And we backed right out of there. It was not surprising to me to find out that the mud had an impact on the Battle of Waterloo ... I definitely respect the power of the mud here. Another alternate route, was going along fine .. It was a one lane road and we were following a truck. All was well until the truck had to stop to unload. I guess we could have waited, but instead we backed up down the lane and went another way.

Once we got back to Ghent, we parked the car and walked from the hotel to the historic center. Really a pretty and interesting place. We took a lot of pictures ... to be fair, Dave took the pictures, I encouraged him. There was a carnival set up on one of the squares, and it was fun to watch the kids riding on the merry go round.

I will close tonight with just some more random observations and thoughts. I was getting concerned that of all of the tractors over here, we hadn't seen any John Deere ones ..but no worries, today we saw two. I would have gotten a picture, but they were long gone by the time I found my camera, turned it on and took the picture. Also, lots of solar panels over here. Yesterday we saw a pretty big field of them and today we saw many houses that had them installed. You have to really look close in the picture to find the house with the solar panels though.

Dave is doing better with his sniffles ... More medicine tonight and early to bed. Tomorrow we are off to Flanders Fields.

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Comments

[Matt]

Lightning
Luke perked up when we were looking at this picture. He told me that he wants to go to Europe. Thanks for taking this picture!

[The Ring Travel Saga]

Score
You know I did that on purpose :)