Advertisement
Canola Fields
These are beautiful!Today we started across France on our way to the beaches of Normandy. Our first stop was a beautiful gothic style church in a town we were passing through. Unfortunately I didn’t get the name of the town. There was a funeral about to start so we did not go inside. I am including a picture because it is beautiful.
We drove on to Verdun which was the site of a major battle in World War I. It was a place similar to Ft. Hackenburg that was fortified with bunkers all around. We first went into the museum and took a brief tour. All around the area you could see where trenches and foxholes were dug and where the land was blown up by gun fire. It was hard to believe that it was left just as it was nearly 100 years ago and trees have grown up around very uneven ground.
Just up the road from the museum was a memorial built to resemble a bunker. In front of the memorial was a WWI cemetery that held 50,000 graves. The actual memorial was built on a mass grave site that couldn’t be moved so there are windows where
you can see the skeletal remains of soldiers. It was very eerie. The Islamic men who fought and died there were buried facing the east and there was a small mosque built to honor their sacrifice. From there we stopped along the road where the grounds keeper mows so that you can get a close view of the trenches.
One of the many memorials on the battlefield is the "Bayonet Trench", which marks the location where some dozen bayonets lined up in a row were discovered projecting out of the ground after the war. Below each rifle was the body of a French soldier. It is believed that these belonged to a group of soldiers who had rested their rifles against the trench they were occupying when they were killed during a bombardment. The men were buried where they lay in the trench and the rifles left untouched. Now you can only see parts of the tips of the guns and bayonets…unfortunately people have vandalized the area over the years.
Afterward we got to stop at the bunker and walk around to see how much ground it covered and all of the gun turrets and the uneven land (caused
by the shellfire). We didn’t go inside and it was my understanding that is wasn’t as elaborate at Ft. Hackenburg but it was unbelievable! Construction was started as early as 1885 to protect the French from invasion by the Germans.
From there we went to Reims to see the cathedral in which all the Kings of France were crowned. Joan of Arc had her own side chapel there but her body isn’t there because she was burned at the stake and there was no body to inter. Russian artist Chappel created a stained glass window for the cathedral that was such a beautiful, unusual color of blue it became known as Chapell blue. There is also a statue of an angel who is smiling down on the people. The cathedral started out in the Romanesque style but it took so long to build it the style changed to Gothic. This cathedral uses the flying buttresses to support the roof.
Once we left the cathedral we went to the school and museum where Eisenhower had his headquarters and where the armistice was first signed to end the war. This occurred on May 7th but the recognized date if May 8
Fleury Musuem
50,000 WWI soldiers are buried here. because they wanted it signed in Berlin. What really angered us about this museum is that even though it was the headquarters of and English speaking general…..everything was in French….even the movie (with English subtitles). We have learned that the French don’t want to Americanize anything and they even have a law that no American words can be introduced into their language. They are most unfriendly here and, unlike all the other countries we have visited, they do not speak English and don’t attempt to. It was very frustrating to not be able to read anything at the Eisenhower’s museum so my mom met with one of the museum workers and let them know of her displeasure. If it hadn’t been for the Americans, France would probably be speaking German. Most of the people of our party felt the same. Even our host, Jan, has told this museum on earlier visits to be more American friendly.
It was time to go to our hotel for check in and dinner. So far most of the meals have been pretty good….there have been a few things we didn’t like. Tonight’s meal was the greatest exception. For the first course they brought a
Uneven ground
Caused by WWI battle plate with what looked like two slabs of very bad spam, miniature pickles, lettuce (no dressing), and something that looked like prunes but smelled like they had been pickled. It really looked like tobacco that had already been chewed. Of our group of thirty only a couple of people ate anything at all. Of course it opened us all up for much laughter and discussion. The next course was supposed to be shepherd’s pie, however we couldn’t tell whether the shepherd killed his sheep, his horse, or his cow. Shepherd’s pie here consisted of cooked meat formed in a circle with mashed potatoes on top and very bad gravy. With it we were served more lettuce with a hint of vinegar & oil. The bread was was very popular at this meal. One of our friends, Cherie, wouldn’t eat because she was sure she was eating horsemeat…sooooo….every once in a while I would whinny…..our whole table cracked up. Dessert was crème brulee…which was the best part of the meal except for the bread.
Larry has decided not to give the French any more of his money, because of the museum at Reims (Eisenhower) so he is going on a
Bayonet Trench
Look to the right and in front of the cross to see the gun tip. hunger strike. Mom never wanted the French to have her money….so I am left to fend for myself. I told them both they will have to take lots of items from breakfast to last all day. It has been interesting.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.049s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 13; qc: 20; dbt: 0.0262s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
