8 March 2023
We are driving back to Portugal but making a holiday off it on the way down this time.
After staying overnight in Kent with Sylvia (Steves's sister) we made our way to the dock through the remnants of snow. Our ferry was still planned to leave but was delayed by an hour due to the high winds.
The crossing wasn't too bad for me although Steve suffered a little from nausea, luckily it was only an hour and a half so time passed fairly quickly.
We drove off the boat in high spirits and joined a long queue to get through border control, as we approached I tucked my blanket around the large time of paint to conceal it from the police who were checking the vehicles. This turned out to be the right thing to do as we were pulled over and questioned regarding the amount of luggage we had in the car. Apparently, we were told that you can only bring in up to €1000 of goods for a couple since Brexit, which is supposed to be on a list. The policeman glanced into our car as we told him that it was mostly clothes and personal effects.........the car was stuffed to bursting and he commented well I can't see a television, we laughed and said we didn't watch television and we couldn't have fitted one in. After a few minutes, he let us go and we gave a huge sigh of relief!
In fact, the car contained 30 litres of paint, cutlery, mugs, 5kg cashew nuts, 2 1/2 kg chia seeds, lots of camera equipment and all our personal belongings.......oops!!
We drove to Dunkirk for the start of our holiday visiting the Dunkerque 1940s museum and an art installation in the park with a fabulous poppy piece.
As it was raining we didn't stay as long as we would normally have, we drove onto our first night of accommodation near the Menin gate. We had a bite to eat on the way then arrived at the gate for the service which happens every night at 8pm, it was very moving.
9 March 2023
We drove onto Hill 62, a museum with the original trenches outside. Another moving day, the museum was the most chaotic museum I have ever seen, with so many artefacts on display but no written descriptions at all.
However, once we were outside, the museum came to life, there were the original trenches that you could walk through, surrounded by bomb craters, narrow winding and full of mud, dark low, long tunnels that we only attempted after following some teenage girls as they went through, very sobering thinking of the men who fought here so many years ago.
Back in the museum, we had a laugh at some of the mannequins that the museum had used, this is clearly in need of some updating.
After lunch, we got chatted and were advised to go to Passendale museum, this was amazing. Well set out, an audio guide in English and the museum carried on outside with a trench system and dug out that gave a very realistic idea of how the soldiers lived. We managed to dodge most of the rain and thoroughly enjoyed our day.
10th March 2023
Today's visit was to Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial which was dedicated to the Canadians. Another fantastic free place to visit.
The Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial stands as an important symbol of remembrance and a lasting tribute to all Newfoundlanders who served during the First World War. At the heart of the memorial stands a great bronze caribou (the emblem of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment). Its defiant gaze forever fixed towards its former foe, the caribou stands watch over rolling fields that still lay claim to many men with no known final resting place.
We took a self-guided tour through the park following paths which took us between the English and German frontlines along paths which had warnings not to stray due to unexploded bombs to various memorials, the danger tree and so many graves many of which were unmarked.
We then moved onto The Thiepval Memorial, the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme along one of the worst roads ever which we have now found out we were not supposed to use. This memorial bears the names of more than 72,000 officers and men of the United Kingdom and South African forces who died in the Somme sector before 20 March 1918 and have no known grave. Over 90% of those commemorated died between July and November 1916. The memorial also serves as an Anglo-French Battle Memorial in recognition of the joint nature of the 1916 offensive and a small cemetery containing equal numbers of Commonwealth and French graves lies at the foot of the memorial.
The memorial, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, was built between 1928 and 1932 and unveiled by the Prince of Wales, in the presence of the President of France, on 1 August 1932 (originally scheduled for 16 May but due to the death of French President Doumer the ceremony was postponed until August).
The dead of other Commonwealth countries, who died on the Somme and have no known graves, are commemorated on national memorials elsewhere.
11th March 2023
On the final day of our WW1 tour, visiting Compiegne.
The Royallieu-Compiègne was an internment and deportation camp located in the north of France in the city of Compiegne, open from June 1941 to August 1944. French resistance fighters and Jews were among some of the prisoners held in this camp. It is estimated that around 40,000 people were deported from the Royallieu-Compiègne camp to other camps in the German territory of the time.
A memorial of the camp and another along the railway tracks commemorates the tragedy.
A fitting end to our tour, we visited the clearing where the Armistice was signed in 1918. On November 11, 1918, General Maxime Weygand of France, Admiral Wemyss of Great Britain and Marshal Foch of France negotiated an Armistice in the Compiègne Forest within the Rethondes Clearing. This Armistice marked an end to more than four years of horrific fighting on the Western Front
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