Ypres, Belgium chocolate and beer

---

So after a night in Alice House, 3 stories and lots of stairs! It was off to have a look at Ypres. Walking through the square past the cathedral and the men setting up for the music festival on the weekend, we were glad that Mieke had advised us of it, more on that later.
Ypres is a cool little place, very orientated towards tourists but at the same time the buildings are spectacular.
Walking to the Menin Gate it just hits you in its immense size. It is a memorial to the Ypres and Commonwealth soldiers of WW1 who died and have no known grave. Their names are engraved on the walls of the gate. Nearly 55,000 names are engraved on the walls.
It takes you aback just looking at name after name, and what a waste of life it really is. A whole generation of young men just gone.
Two lion statues decorate the entrance. Interestingly they actually were donated to the Australian War Memorial in 1926 by Ypres Mayor. Currently they are back in Ypres for the commemoration of the 100 year anniversary of WW1 and will return to Australia after Rememberance Day this year.
The gate was one of only two entrances into Ypres at that time and is the entrance believed to have been used by Australian soldiers.
We returned later that evening to see the service which had was quite haunting with the last post echoing around the structure.
Other than the typical tourists who pushed their way in front of others it was a beautiful service. Still amazed that they do it every night.
Walking back to the square and past a shop Phil pointed out the Vickers Machine Gun in the window. Although deactivated would never have seen anything like that in Australia and if there was I'm sure it wouldn't have been in the window long!!
Grabbing a few of the local beers to go with the platters we were going to make up we headed back to Alice House.
Settling in the music festival people decided testing was in order. Given they were only allowed to do this until 6pm and warned by Mieke they would likely push their luck, Phil 'politely' advised them to stop given it was well after that.
They tried to tell him it was just testing!
And then it became 'fun' when at 12:40am they started up again. Don't think the man thought it so funny when I went out and told him what I though!! At least it was the end of it for then and thank heavens we had decided to move on before the festival started. There is no way that anyone would have slept.
Mieke later told us the locals hate this festival and the only reason it is allowed is because the operator knows a local politician.
At least in a way he got his just desserts as it poured with the rain the next night, the night of the festival itself.

---