Waiting in line for the Pearl Jam concert last year, we got talking to another Kiwi couple and they told us (among many other things) about their trip to Belgium for Anzac Day. And it is something that sat well for us. We don’t like the idea of Gallipoli on Anzac Day as that is just too full of drunk Kiwis and Australians. Belgium sounded a bit more sombre and more in our style of weekend trips!
So with Anzac Day being on a weekend this year, we took the opportunity to head away, and I am glad we did.
We took the Eurostar to Lille on Friday night, and headed off in our rental car to Belgium early on Saturday morning (well 9am is early for us!). Lille is really close to the Belgium border and so we were there in no time. As we drove across the border where the border buildings still stand (even though they are no longer needed thanks to the formation of the EU), I had to think how lucky we are to get so easily from one country to the next, and how foreign that would be to someone who hasn’t been to Europe.
We stopped in a small town just over the Belgian border to grab some food for breakfast. But we couldn’t find a bank, so had to walk to the town in France to get money out! Some yummy pain-o-chocolat, a baguette and our first strawberries and raspberries of the season kept us happy.
Our first real tourist stop was in Westvleteren, to the monastery which brews the best beer in the world (or so it was voted at some point!). We had been planning to buy some beer (as it is really sought after so is extremely difficult to find in shops in Belgium, let alone anywhere else in the world) but unfortunately it was closed as the monks were having a rest day (and NOT on a Sunday!).
So we just enjoyed the beer in the sun instead.
What was amazing to me as we drove through the countryside, was just how many WWI cemeteries there are in the area. They come in all shapes and sizes, some marked, others not, but you find it very hard to get away from them. Normal farming life takes place around them, but they must always be a constant reminder to the past to those who live here.
One cemetery we did stop off at, and spent a lot of time at was Tyne Cot Cemetery, the largest British war cemetery in mainland Europe. Nearly 12,000 Commonwealth soldiers are buried there, some with names, others with battalion names and yet further unmarked. A symbol for each country is on the top of each stone.
In this one you can see Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Scotland.
The cemetery is amazingly laid out, with flowers by each row, and it is easy to spend time just wandering through the rows looking at the headstones.
At the back of the cemetery is the list of British solders for whom there is no grave, and whose name couldn’t fit on the Menin Gate in Ypres. [The Menin Gate is HUGE and it is a very stark reminder to think that this huge memorial could not list all the names of those who went missing. The Menin Gate lists 55,000 soldiers....]
At Tyne Cot there is also a separate NZ memorial area, where all the NZ missing are listed.
From the cemetery we headed up to the NZ Memorial commemorating the Battle of Broodseinde. Its in the middle of pretty much no-where, but is amazingly well kept. We were thoroughly impressed by the state of all the memorials and cemeteries.
On the way back to our B&B (called Haere Mai, but owned by locals!) we stopped at a museum which seemed to have a few people hanging about. It turned out they were having a bit of an exhibition of life during WWI and had people dressed in French, Belgium and British army uniforms. We loved the British – just like Dad’s Army!
Then after a quick nap at our B&B we headed into Ypres to look at the Menin Gate, to be there for the last post which takes place at 8pm at the gate and take in the small town.
Ypres was totally demolished during WWI, but has been rebuilt in the original style. It’s a really nice little town.
The Last Post Association has closed the road through the Menin Gate, and played the last post every night since 1928, bar during the Second World War.
It was 8pm, the sun was starting to go down and the area under the gate was pretty much filled with people. It is an amazingly moving tribute, and wasn’t helped by there also being bag pipers playing Amazing Grace (which always makes me cry!) for some Scots Guards who were there.
Stocky and I have said we would like to come back in the middle of winter to be a part of it again. I imagine that in winter there won’t be quite the crowd we had on Saturday night and the last post will be much more poignant and eery in the dark and the cold.
On Sunday morning we headed to the New Zealand War Memorial in Messines for a morning service. Messines is a (very) small town that the New Zealand troops helped to liberate as part of the Battle of Messines. As such, there is even a Nieuwzeelanderstraat (New Zealand street)!
I was amazed at how many people were there for the service, and it felt good to be a part of the NZ community on the otherside of the world.
The road up there was pretty tiny though….
Then we headed to the Peace Pool, which is one of the craters that formed following the Battle of Messines, where the Allies blew up the countryside. It is a pretty idyllic place these days….
Then it was back to Ypres to meet up with the Aussies and take part in an ANZAC ceremony at the Menin Gate. A procession, led by a band, formed at the Ypres town hall and then we all marched down to the Menin Gate where there were a few readings, the last post, the laying of wreaths and the singing of national anthems.
After a stroll around the town we headed back into the countryside, and this time to a German cemetery. The difference in the Commonwealth cemeteries and the German one was startling. Commonwealth have white stone headstones and flowers and it feels light and bright. The German one had dark stone under large trees which cast a shadow over the whole place.
(Although it did start to spit a little at the German cemetery so that may not have helped the vibe!)
This cemetery (Deutscher Soldatenfriedhof) has about 45,000 German soldiers buried here, of which nearly 25,000 are in a mass grave as you walk in. Then there are the headstones around the area, each which names from one to about 16 soldiers. That last photo has all the soldiers dying pretty much on the same day…
So we headed back to Lille and then back home to London (3 countries in one day!) feeling a little sombre, but for me anyway, feeling I have a better understanding of WWI and what happened in that area.
It was a weekend that I won’t forget, and allowed us to reflect on how lucky we are to live the life we do. And to hope that such a war will not be repeated again.
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