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so since Plymouth I have crossed the english channel by ferry to France, stayed in Saint Malo and seen Mont St Michel and now arrived in beautiful Ypres, Belgium! (Or Ieper, depending on which language you speak!) Its weird you just cross the border from France into Belgium and you don,t even realise...no "welcome to Belgium" or anything! I thought that being Belgium would just mean more French but this small town is much more influenced by german and dutch, with flemish being the number one language spoken! the town is filled with australians because of the lead up to ANZAC day. we went to the last post ceremony at the Menin Gate - a memorial with all the names of the missing commonwealth soldiers from WWI with no known graves. The next day we took a tour on the south ypres salient where most of the australian fighting took place, we saw hill 60 and the crater the explosives made as well as the trenches of australians and germans and the place where the christmas truce and football game occured (on christmas day the soldiers of both sides stood down and sang carols and played football together) the saddest part of the battle field tour was the mass army cemeteries which could be seen along the drive... so many of the headstones read, a soldier of the great war - known unto god as they could not be identified.
we spent saturday in Bruge which was ridiculously crowded and a little overwhelming, really old beautiful buildings were surrounded by dodgem cars and carnivals like things which made the town feel a bit odd. but it was a lovely warm day and we went on a boat tour around the waterway through the city.
Easter in Belgium was amazing of course...Belgium chocolate really does live up to your expectations! although the combination of the chocolate and the french pastries and belgian waffles we have been eating is starting to make me feel slightly sick with all the sugar! we spent the day driving to Villiers Brettoneux for the dawn ANZAC service at the australian memorial tomorrow, apparently 10 000 australians will be there!
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