We took the Eurostar, and taking the train was a nice change from flying. You'd think it would be special to go under the English Channel, but alas, there are no mermaids, underground trolls or serpents waving as you cruise underground. It's just a big long tunnel.
Lille was beautiful. We didn't have high expectations at all, because when the all the car-burning rioting was going on in France last year, a lot of it happened around Lille. Much to our surpise it was very beautiful there, with most of the old part of town restricted to pedestrians. We spent all of Saturday wandering the streets and shopping and imbibing in some chocolate croissants. Yum!
Here are a few shots of Lille:
On Sunday morning we drove our funny little rental car to Vimy Ridge. It's about a half hour away from Lille. It was very beautiful there, and very touching. It was amazing to see all the trenches and craters, and we had a tour of the tunnels the soldiers used for planting explosives under the German lines.
The tour guides there are all Canadian students that work there for a four month contract. Unfortunately, the big stone tower that makes up the memorial was being restored, so we didn't get to see that. It's hard to explain how sad it was to see the cemetaries - the thousands of graves, most of them unknown. It seems impossible that so many people died on what was a very beautiful hill in the French countryside. Of course the big red signs warning of unexploded mines make it a bit more real.
Here are a few pictures from Vimy:
No comments:
Post a Comment