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Had an amazing day.
Have to wite this up later.
Hello.
It's 8.04pm Friday 12th September.
I'm tucked up (on top) of the bed.
Here's the Battlefields...
We rose at 5am.
Well, I did.
Takes me longer...
Emily up at 5.20am.
Across the road for a coffee and we are on our way.
Train from Place D'Italie to Paris Nord.
Very large station but we knew where to go.
Onto the train.
Emily and I sat together. We just looked for seats that were not reserved as Amanda had advised.
(Originally, when the seats were booked, we couldn't get 2 together.)
Turned out not to be any hassle at all.
The train was 90% empty.
Hey, First Class is magic!
Great train trip through the French countryside.
Wonderful checking out the villages and trying to spot Church Spires.
Arrived Amiens.
Beautiful station and lovely big public area around it.
Found Emily another coffee.
(Two, actually, the first one was 'awful'.)
Across the road to meet the bus between the big tower and the Carlton Hotel.
Easy.
The 'Terres de Memoire' van arrived and Sylvester introduced himself to us.
Lovely man.
Great fun.
Turns out it is his own business.... Greg, Leanne, Meagan.
And I have been emailing his wife, Estelle.
Eight of us in the minivan.
All Australians, a couple, a husband and wife and 2 young girls about 8 and 10...
Lovely family. The girls were brilliant.
And Emily and I.
Drove out of Amiens, straight to the Villers-Breonneux Memorial.
Breathtaking....and HUGE.
When I was here last year, a lot of work was being done on the road and entrance in preparation for the 100 year anniversary.
Well, it was finished and it looks magnificent.
Beautiful lawns... A wonderful hedge has been planted to edge the road.
Car parking put in... And a visitors centre will be built shortly.
Sylvester gave us a lot of the history and then we wandered in.
This place is beautiful.
Absolutely beautiful.
Immaculately kept... Just breathtaking.
We wandered amongst the graves... Reading headstones... Reflecting...
Then up the the huge wall with the names of 11,000 Missing.
No Known Grave.
That wall is imposing.
Emily and I climbed the steps to the top of the Tower where the Last Post is played on ANZAC Day...
And looked out over the site.
The magnificent window with the Australian Rising Sun....
Beautiful sunny day.
The view was spectacular.
Sylvester pointed out bullet holes in the Tower from the Second World War.
Lots of time there.
Then onto the Victoria School in Villers-Brettonneux.
We toured the Museum in the attic area above the school.
Wandered in the Assembly Hall...
And looked out into the playground and saw the very moving sign...
'DO NOT FORGET AUSTRALIA'
Wow.
Then Sylvester took us to a German Cemetery.
The starkness of it was amazing.
Just very plain black crosses and barely mown grass.
He explained that the Allies decided where the German Cemeteries were to be located.
Not on main roads and not on hills..
I was surprised to see a few white headstones amongst the crosses.
He explained they were for Jewish soldiers who fought fit Germany.
That was more surprising too until he explained it was World War One, not World War Two.
He said there are very few visitors to these cemeteries.
Next, off to lunch.
We agreed that Sylvester should choose where we eat and he drove us to Albert.
Wonderful little restaurant.
We sat at a long table... They obviously knew Sylvester there and that just made it special.
We spent most of lunch with Sylvester trying to explain to us that everything in country France closes for 2 hours over lunch... And it's a wonderful cooked lunch.
And him, trying to wrap his mind around a cold sandwich for lunch, half an hour, at your desk.
( He thought that was silly.)
Not being one to sit for long, I ordered and the shot out the door to a gift shop nearby.
Success.
A purchase.
Ate lunch.
Shot back out the door.
'Closed for lunch'.
Sylvester said, 'I told you so!'
Next, onto Pozieres and the 'Gibraltar Bunker'.
This place was continually bombed....
And, what I didn't realise, was although the houses were destroyed, the cellars often remained.
That was the case here.
The Germans set up a command post in the cellar of a ruined house, on a rise.
And were able to dig tunnels from that cellar and create a machine gun post.
Thousands died here trying to take this bit of land.
And it is just a 'bit'.
Wonderful Memorial here as well.
We then headed to the Lochnagarmine Crater.
The Allies detonated 17 lots of explosives in underground tunnels to try to create confusion amongst the Germans as they advanced.
This crater is ENORMOUS.
The photos do not do it justice.
While we were there, there were 2 volunteers, a lady and a man, screwing small brass plaques into the wooden walkway circling the crater.
Each plaque had been ordered by a relative who wanted someone remembered.
Not necessarily someone who had died in the war, but people who had fought for those years and then returned and created a life after this.
People were wanting some recognition for those who fought, and returned as well.
(He was a funny man... Had some tales to tell.)
Then Sylvester showed us a cross...
'In Memory Of George Nugent'
Several years ago, a tourist noticed bones in the soil while walking around the Lochnagarmine Crater.
He pointed them out to some volunteer workers.
And the remains of a George Nugent were found.
He went missing on 1st July, 1916.
He was found on 31st October, 1998.
He has since been buried at a nearby cemetery.
Sylvester told us there are thousands of men still waiting to be found.
Six remains are found each month.
But of the hundreds of thousands still missing in the Somme, this is a drop in the ocean.
Thiepval Memorial was our next stop.
This is amazing.
It is just so big.
It has the names of 78,000 Missing.
There was a Thiepval Chateau here at the beginning of the war.
The family that lived in the Chateau lost 4 sons in the war and could not bear to return.
Onto Newfoundland Park, the Memorial to the 600 of 800 Newfoundland soldiers
( part of Canada, sort of )
who died in the first assault trying to run across open ground towards German machine guns.
About 400 yards...
They fought over it for 5 months.
Thousands died.
After the war, the Chaplain of the Newfoundland Brigade came back to France and bought this land.
It is the only area that has the trenches in the original state.
Bearing in mind 100 years of erosion and vegetation.
We walked through these trenches, trying to imagine not being able to look over the top, lying in mud and rain and darkness and getting bombed and shot at.
You can't.
You simply cannot imagine it.
And then the order comes to go over the top.
But, while you are up there, and being shot at...
You have to first cut through your defensive barbed wire....
Before you can run over open ground...
Towards machine guns.
The Caribou looks amazing at this Memorial.
Then we headed to Vignacourt.
Uncle Albert's grave.
Beautiful little cemetery.
Immaculately kept.
Encased in stone walls, surrounded by sky high crops.
This place in beautiful.
Emily and I went to the grave first.
Then the others followed.
The rose at the gravesite is blooming and looks beautiful.
I am glad I could come here again.
It is beautiful.
We had an amazing day.
Very moving.
Sylvester was fantastic, so knowledgable, and so much fun.
He dropped us back at Amiens about 5.30pm.
Train back to Paris.
Great, great day.
- comments
Greg A very special and memorable day.
Daryl Amazing day. Think I'd have a lump in my throat from go the woe.
Megs The rose looks spectacular! xx
Megs Sounds like perfection Aunty can! So amazing seeing those sights, even more special with family! Uncle Albert has been a very popular soldier over the last year, now The Streets know where he is, he'll never run out of visitors nor will he escape our nostalgic ways! Hope you're having a ball!! lots of love (and green with envy) megs xxxx