Advertisement
Published: July 29th 2016
Edit Blog Post
Vimy Ridge
The monument was moving. Sorry no blog last night. It was a long day - up early and home late....So, today will be a rest and recovery day, starting with yesterday's blog.
After a couple of days on bikes, our butts were begging us to spare them the bike seats. So, we headed out early (ish) for the north east city of Lille. Getting out of the city took a while with getting slightly lost combined with some road closures.....but then we found the A1 (not the sauce) and headed north. We played a car game of "country license plates" and found nearly all of Europe's plates (Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Luxembourg). The highways here are A, N and D and work the opposite of cup sizes (A is the biggest and D is very small). We made it to Lille just in time before the market closed for the day and it was mainly clothing, produce, knickknacks, etc. It was crowded and chaotic and we didn't stay too long.
Since we had more to see today, we drove around Lille some more and then headed down a D highway towards Lens which is the home of the Vimy Ridge battlegrounds,
Careful!
There were attendants whose job was merely to keep people off the grass! monument and visitor centre. The drive was very pretty and felt a little like driving down English country roads. Little villages every 5 minutes with houses right up against the road. Arrived in Vimy and walked out to the monument. There were lots of other Canadians there. Several school groups in clusters reading memorials about soldiers they had researched and told their story out loud to their classmates. Then walked around the property along the paths, being careful not to step off the path as there are signs everywhere about undetonated explosives...yikes! The grounds are all lumpy and covered in craters showing the remaining effects of the war. At the visitors centre there is a really great exhibit with lots of pictures and information about the site. It is fully staffed with Canadians and they hire summer students from all over Canada too. We walked around the trenches for a while and Nigel made the hilarious observation that a tall guy would not last long in the trenches (his head was a great target sticking above the trench walls - see photo) and later we heard a guide say that actually, they put the taller soldiers on communication duty and
Plaque
There was lots of information to be read not in the trenches.....The kids really enjoyed this part of the day especially which was nice to see.
Next, continued heading southwest on a D route to Amiens. We were not sure what to expect here but had read about a cathedral to visit. We are so glad we found this place! We parked and immediately found an old church and took some photos. Then we walked around some more and came across the actual cathedral called the Cathedral d'Amiens de Notre Dame. It was spectacular. We walked all around it and inside (see photos). Then we walked around the city as it was all pedestrian walkways in the city centre. We decided to eat dinner here as it was already 6:30. However, we discovered that some of the restaurants don't actually open till 7:00 (until then they only sell beer)! So, we walked around some more as there was lots to see. Dinner was kebabs on delicious 'galettes' (wraps) and we were going to have crepes for dessert but the crepe places were now all closed! So, back in the car and home late and straight to bed.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.053s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 13; qc: 31; dbt: 0.0255s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb