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Published: September 29th 2008
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Sunday 28th September, 2008
Not an early start to the day as we woke up about 10 o'clock.
The sun is shining again! and the weather is great, the air is a little cold but, certainly T-Shirt weather.
A gentle drive heading towards Arras, was the plan for the day.
We stopped the Cabaret Rouge British Cemetery containing approx 8,000, another beautifully kept and picturesque site. This was the cemetery from which the Canadians, removed an unknown Canadian soldier, to be re-interred in their Unknown Soldier memorial in Ottowa.
We visited the Vimy Ridge trench system in the park bequeathed to the Canadians after the war, by the French. This has been kept more or less preserved, as it was when the war ended. The parallel running of the trenches and the size of No Man's Land, being very apparent here, with a distance between of only about 15 metres, you could easily have thrown a grenade that distance, although, I don't think having your head above the trench would have been a good idea.
The Canadian Memorial to all those who perished in the Great War is the largest memorial we have so far
seen. It is very high and because of the flat terrain can be seen from miles away.
Opposite the Canadian Memorial is the Morrocan memorial, which we stopped at and had a look around.
Canadian Cemetery No. 2, containing 2965, is an uninspiring name for a cemetery and actually contains far more British than Canadian, however, I shouldn't be disrespectful.
Neuville St. Vaast German Military cemetery containing 44,830 dead, is the largest German Military cemetery in France. This has mostly individual graves and is therefore a massive site, I have taken pictures, but I don't think they will convey the sheer enormous size of the place, headstone after headstone going off into the distance. The majority are simple dark crosses and again very few flowers are around.
Drove on to Arras. This is another town largely destroyed in the war and then rebuilt after, as much as possible, identically.
We had a meal looking out onto the Arras Grand Place at Le Montesivano. Italian Food, a pizza, Americana and a pasta dish.
Pat said she felt like something from a French Tourist advert, with our guide books on show etc.
Arras seemed quiet,
but we moved round to the Place d'Heros and it had a bit more life.
And guess what we found in Arras, the Place D'Ipswich - Ipswich Square, no idea what connection, I'm afraid. It has an old red UK telephone box in it?!
As an aside, we have both been impressed by the amount of self-service things we have spotted: self service DVD rental, self service Bread, self service hotel reception, they certainly have some things sewn up.
Tunnels have been dug out of the chalk under Arras for many centuries, and these tunnels were used extensively, during the Great War, for obvious reasons. We found the Guided Tour for the Tunnels under Arras which starts from the under the Town Hall. 24,000 troops were in 22 kilometers of tunnels for a week before the battle of Arras, which was a great success, they pushed the Germans back 10 kilometers.
A beer and diet coke were needed to rehydrate and we did some watching the world go by, sitting in the afternoon sunshine.
Drove back and had dinner in the Campanille again. BeefSteak and Yakitori Chicken.
29° C, late in the afternoon. Sunny
and quite cloudless all day.
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