Ypres

---

17 September 2017

We left Abbey Wood at 8am, caught the 9.50 train through the Channel Tunnel and at lunchtime arrived at our first destination of the Continental part of this trip, the area around Ypres in Belgium where 300,000 allied troops lost their lives in WW1. It is the site of the Battle of Passchendaele, the centenary of which had recently been marked.

In the afternoon, we visited two contrasting war cemeteries. Tyne Cot, the world’s largest British Commonwealth site and Deutscher Soldatenfriedhof, the largest German cemetery in the area.

We stayed the night at a site close to the centre of Ypres and were able to walk in to witness the nightly playing of the Last Post by local buglers at the Menin Gate, a huge memorial entrance to the City. Several wreaths were laid during the ceremony.

---