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Published: October 4th 2008
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Friday 3rd October 2008 continued
After settling into the Hotel, we decided to go for a wander to find something to eat. The Campanille was handy but very busy, and on the way back there was an emergency going on with Fire & Police attending some gas being released at high pressure and we were only allowed to go back to the Hotel, so as we had had a good lunch anyway, we just ate some biscuits stashed for just this purpose.
The night was pretty disturbed with lots of comings and goings and shouting outside the rooms in the early hours, but we slept fairly well.
Saturday 4th October, 2008.
The plan for today was to get from Chalons to Longwy, via Verdun.
We set off about our usual time, and I used the next door self-service car wash to get some of the road grime off the car.
We had chosen the back roads again and drifted through the countryside. We stopped briefly in Verdun, then moved on towards the various memorials.
We stopped at the Voie Sacree Memorial (Sacred Way) which was the road all the munitions and men moved down
to Verdun, their was a lorry every 10 seconds for weeks, to supply the front.
If you don't know the history of this place, basically in 1916, the French and the Germans knocked six bells out of each other, and about 500,000 lost their lives on both sides.
The short story is that Falkenhayn wanted to use the war of attrition on the French and used this place to do it.
The Ossuary at Douaumont contains the remains of 130,000 unknown soldiers (French & German) from around the area.
You can peer in through windows and see the actual bones, I'm told this isn't unusual in the Catholic Religion.
Below the Ossuary is also a French Military cemetery containing a further 15,000 graves.
The Museum / Tour inside of the Ossuary was closed for lunch, but the chapel was open, so we had a look around, names of some of the missing are on the walls and ceilings.
We then moved on to the site of Fort Douaumont. We wandered around the outside and top then went inside and underground.
There is a lot of history about this place as well. Inside
is what is described as a German Cemetery. During the war whilst the Germans occupied and used the place, it is believed somebody had an accident with a Grenade and the Flamethrowers, and about 800 to 900 Germans lost their lives. Most of them were placed in one of the case mates and the front was bricked up, this is the Cemetery.
Some of the surrounding area, which is now woodland, has been left as was, from the end of the war. So a lot of bumpy land around and preserved trenches. Also there are a number of “Villages Detruit” - Villages destroyed - around here, this was when places were simply wiped off the face of the earth, and never rebuilt after the war.
After the Fort we headed off to Longwy, we bought lunch from a small supermarket and had baguette with ham and cheese, with a pain au chocalat, in a nearby layby.
We then drove off the Longwy and again found the Hotel without too much trouble.
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