Vimy Ridge

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Bonjour,

It took about a month of talking about it and organization, but finally the day, a beautiful sunny day at that, arrived for Teresa, Patryk, Claude, Phil, Laura and I to go to Vimy Ridge. For those of you who don’t know, Vimy Ridge was the first time during World War I that Canadian soldiers fought together and were led by Canadian commanders.

We had to catch an early train (635am) because we had to arrive in Ypres by 830am in order to meet our guide from Salient Tours who would drive us to Vimy, in northern France if one is not sure, take us around the site when we are there, and then return us to Ypres so we could take the train back to Brussels. The problem with catching such an early train is that the public transport that moves people to the train station does not run at full capacity. I was aware of this when I left my house at 5 minutes to 6 but when I got to Merode, I saw that I had missed the subway by minutes and another one wasn’t coming for a while. I then decided to run the 15 minutes through the Cinquantenaire Park to catch one of the myriad cabs that line up outside the European Council building. None were there when I arrived. I headed back down to the metro and finally caught a subway. Instead of transferring to a different subway and potentially waiting even longer, I went to Gare Centrale and hopped on the first train heading south because I thought they would be more frequent than the metros. I was correct and I arrived in Gare du Midi at 624am, 9 minutes after I was supposed to meet everyone else. They were all there, but each one had a somewhat similar story of having difficulty catching public transport to get to the station. After buying tickets and breakfast, we got on the train at 634am, a mere minute before the train was to leave.

We arrived in Ypres on time and met Tonya outside the train station. She is doing an MA in WWI studies, and would be our guide for the trip. She drove us briefly around the town, and we got to see the city walls which were designed by the French military architect Vauban, the Lakenhalle (the Cloth Hall destroyed during WWI and since rebuilt), the Menen Gate (where the missing Commonwealth soldiers have their names inscribed) and then a statue that was a water tap with water flowing out of it but it was suspended in mid-air as if it was floating. No photos of it unfortunately, but you could probably google it because it was really cool.

We drove through western Belgium and then entered France. That part of France is very industrial and there are massive tailings piles littered near some of the industrial cities of the region such as Lens and Lille. W pulled off to the side of the road for a little bite so we could see how high the ridge was and see why it was so strategic during the war. We then drove through the town of Vimy and up the hill on to the Ridge.

When you arrive, you enter a forested area consisting of trees that were replanted as part of reparations payments by the Germans after the War. It’s very peaceful up there, despite the large craters that are scattered across the Ridge. The area has not been swept for ordinance, because the Canadian government wanted to leave it as authentic as possible so it was best not to stray from the path! The area has national historic signs set up that are Canadian so it was a bit like visiting a monument in Canada. When we arrived, we were able to get on a tunnel tour with a British tour group. We had a Canadian guide who was working there for the summer take us through the underground tunnels where sappers would did in an attempt to destabilize and destroy enemy tunnels. We also toured the front lines and saw how close the front lines were located to each other. We then met up with Tonya and drove to the front side of the Ridge. We saw the Moroccan Memorial there before walking towards the Canadian (and French) Monument. The structure is composed of a brilliantly white limestone from Croatia and it glistens in the sun. It is also a lot bigger than I had imagined it was! It is a monument to all Canadian action in the War, so it lists of the names of the battles Canadians were involved in as well as most (but not all) of the names of the Canadians who lost their lives during the War. There are statues in parts of the Monument and there are the two towers representing France and Canada. The Monument was very interesting to wander around and the view from the Ridge line was great.

After that, we drove to the bucolic village of Suchet where we bought lunch in a little boulangerie. We then drove to a cemetery named Cabaret Rouge, named after a bar that was destroyed during the War, where we sat on the grass and ate lunch. It’s not as weird as one would think to each lunch in a cemetery. The cemetery is significant for a variety of reasons. The main reason was because the body of an Unknown Soldier was removed from the cemetery and re-interred as the Unknown Soldier in Ottawa.

We then left the cemetery and passed out in the car on the way back to Ypres to catch the train back to Brussels. Seeing Vimy Ridge was spectacular and it made me proud to be Canadian.

Au Revoir,
Peter

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