Ieper - The Great War

Today we had a trip out to Ieper (or Ypres or Leeper - depending on who you speak to and which signs you read) to go out on the Flanders Fields Battlefield Tour.
To start with we had to get a couple of trains out to Ieper from Brugge (via Kortrijk) - which we managed to do with minimal fuss (we were rather impressed with ourselves - it does help to know that pretty much everyone has a small knowledge/understanding of English)

We had a quick walk out to the city centre to meet up with the tour van. The tour was great because we only had 6 of us in the car and the guide (Chris) had so much information / stories to share that the 4.5 hours flew by and we are now very inspired to learn more about WWI & II.

We visited 4 cemetries out of the 150 that are within a 10 sq mile area around Ieper. Over 850,000 died in the area over a 4 year period. It was quite amazing to stand at the biggest of the sights and picutre a man standing at each grave - and then imagine them all being slaughtered. Very heroic that they never gave up even though most knew they weren't going to make it home.

Chris gave us some great details into the Australians who were awarded the VC medal and also some interesting stories of others who gave their life to save their comrades - never let your cobber down.

The 14 year old who used his brothers name to get into the army was an intresting story - his parents thought he was volunteering at a ammunitions factory and it wasn't until the letter arrived informing of the older brothers death that they realised where he had gone.

We have a million other stories but we can't do them justice telling them on here.

Once we were done with the tour we made our way back to Brugges (sucessfully :) and in first class) and had a walk around the streets to find some Waffles - very very good and very very sickening.

We are off to Bayeux tomorrow (via Paris - but only to change trains) to do the Band of Brothers tour of Normandy on Thursday. Should be a great day and I'm sure we will have heaps to share once we get to the net again.

Love to all
Hugs to Bundy & Haydos :)

Au Revoir
Madame & Monsieur Crouch