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How lucky are we to have arrived in Lancaster on the evening the 2011 National Beard and Moustache Championships that are being held just across the road from our hotel!!!!!!!! But more on that later.
After breakfast at the Lincoln Diner, we went to the Gettysburg Tour Centre to see what tour we could get on. We had picked up a brochure and were keen on the open top bus tour. But that one was leaving in 10mins and we wouldn't have made it. That tour was a pre-recorded tour where you listen to commentary on headphones. The tour we went on had a live guide.
The tour went for 2hrs and covered 23 miles of the battleground. I now know that what we passed yesterday coming into town weren't graves but were monuments.
The battlefield area comes under the Gettysburg National Military Park and is looked after by the National Park service. There are some farming fields in the area which are leased to local farmers to farm crops on.
The battlefields have been kept virtually as they were back in 1863. The farms that were there are still there now, the fields have been kept clear, fences in place where they were and forest areas are continually cleared so the same forest areas remain.
The battlefields are dotted with monuments to the regiments who fought there. Veterans of the battle were asked to place the monuments where their regiments fought, not where they lost men. There were also replica cannons placed where they had been used in battle. There are also some monuments to individual generals such as General Warren who appears in today's blog photo, on top of Little Round Top overlooking the fields where Confederate soldiers were advancing.
There is the Eternal Light Peace Memorial on Oak Hill in the battlefields which represents the reconciliation of North and South (Union and Confederate) and was dedicated at the 75th anniversary of the battle.
It was very interesting to see the battlefields and hear the story of the battle. The bus took us to various stops so we heard about it in chronological order. The Battle of Gettysburg only lasted 3 days,1st-3rd July 1863 but the Civil War went on for another 2 years. About 7000 men were killed over the 3 days, another 33 000 were injured and 11 000 were unaccounted for - surrendered, deserted or went missing. Over the 2yrs of the Civil War over 600 000 men were killed which was 2% of the US population at the time. That is terrible considering they were just fighting themselves.
We had to go to a different part of Gettysburg to get on the tour bus and it was a part we didn't know existed. This area had far more tourist shops than we had seen last night. We spent some time going through them when we got off the bus and picked up a few souvenirs including a Union soldier's cap for Robyn once we found out the winning side!!!
Lancaster is just over an hour away from Gettysburg and we arrived here about 5pm this afternoon. The Lancaster Arts Hotel is very nice inside but looks like a warehouse from the outside. We found we have been upgraded to a deluxe room!
Near the hotel we saw a stadium thst had a large amount of people standing around and others approaching. The signs said it was the Beard and Moustache Championships. The guy at reception said last year's world wide winner was a German who had built a bridge into his beard complete with suspension ropes. It was all made out of his beard hair. Noice!!!!!
After checking out local attrlactions for tomorrow, we went out for dinner at a restaurant that does a typical Dutch/Amish buffet. It was delicious!!!!!!
When we got back to the hotel, the championships were over and there were people leaving the stadium. There was a group waiting for the lift in the hotel and the men had extremely large, almost comical handlebar moustaches. They reminded me of Asterix and Obelix!
Tomorrow we are having an Amish experience. We will drive out to Bird in Hand where we can ride in a buggy to visit Amish farms, shops and schools.
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