Canadian War Memorials in France and Belgium

Continuing our adventure from my last post....

On Sunday morning, we left Sedan, France and headed towards Vimy. Vimy was almost a 300km drive - we drove towards Reims and then northwest to Vimy. The scenery along the trip was very plain with lots of farms, fields and wind turbines. I have never seen so many wind turbines in my life as I did along this highway. We also saw 2 deer grazing in a field, but I wasn't quick enough with the camera. There were alot of horses and sheep. The land was extremely flat!

We arrived at Vimy around 11am and really appreciated the memorial site. The designer of the war memorial was Walter Seymour Allard from Toronto who won a competition for his design in 1922. It took 11 years to complete the project. I had seen pictures of the memorial previously, but had no idea how huge it was. It was a moving experience to be here and in the spot where the war was fought - it made me both sad and proud.
The Vimy Ridge War Memorial was restored and rededicated on April 9, 2007, commemorating the 90th anniversary of the battle on this field. We watched a video at the visitor's centre showing how they did this. It took almost 4 years for them to restore it.

The Canadian War Memorial is so big that it can be seen from 30 kms in every direction. At night, the centre (between the 2 massive structures) is lit up so it is never in darkness. In 1922, use of the land to construct a memorial was given by the French nation to the people of Canada in recognition of Canada's war efforts.

The visitor's centre was very interesting and was nice to see some fellow Canadian faces (and people who spoke English). All employees at Vimy Ridge Memorial site are Canadians working on site. The site also has original trenches from the war which you can walk through. The surrounding area around the memorial is loaded with craters and is blocked off with electric fence with signs posted saying "Danger, undetonated explosives" (see picture). This really brings things into perspecitve as the war was fought on this ground. We visited the Cemetary at Vimy Ridge and walked around the grounds.

We left Vimy and headed towards Passendale to see the St. Julien Memorial site. This monument is in remembrance of those who experienced the first gas attack of the war. This was much smaller, but still very interesting to see. In Passendale, we went to the war memorial museum, but it was closed, so we walked around a park that has tools used during the war on site. We also visited Tyne Cot Cemetary in Ypres where over 70% of the graves are marked with headstones which are inscribed with the words "Known Unto God". Their identities were unknown at the time of burial. Their names are all noted on a wall within the cemetary now. There are 966 Canadian soldiers buried at Tyne Cot.

At every site we visited, we signed the visitor's log. We looked through it at every site and saw people from around the world visiting the Commonwealth War Graves. One that stuck out was a couple from Halifax who visited Tyne Cot exactly one week before we were there. It was also nice to see people from other countries visiting the Canadian War Memorial sites.

We left Ypres, Belgium and drove toward Brussels and arrived late evening. Once we got into the city, we had a hard time finding our way back to our apartment. It's funny that when you travel by train and subway, you pop up like groundhogs every once in awhile, but never really know how you got there. I've mentioned before that in Brussels, there is a lack of stop lights and roundabouts - the rule of the right applies at all intersections - so, me being on the right side of the car, I was gripping the door like a maniac and my eyes were darting back and forth (like that was going to save me).
On the way home, we spotted the Atomium (building shaped like an iron atom which was built for the World Expo in 1958). It was all sparkly and nice so we stopped to admire it. I have seen it during the day, but this was a first at night. We made it home after about an hour of driving around Brussels, unpacked the car and headed back out to the airport to return the rental.

It was a great weekend - we saw so many interesting things that were on our "list" of things to see. I am no longer nervous about driving in Europe - it's the same as home, just alot faster!

Rhine River

What a weekend! We didn't end up going to Amsterdam, instead we rented a car and drove to Germany to see the famous Rhine River! The Rhine River is home to many of the castles in Germany as this river was used to transport goods to many cities inland and the castles of the rich oversaw these deliveries. It was so interesting to see and read about the history of the castles and those who inhabited them. Many of them are ruins as they were destroyed in the war, however, some are still private homes and others are hotels/tourist attractions. I think we went at the right time of year because there was little traffic along the river and I've read that this is a very busy spot during the spring and summer. The map here shows some of the castles along the river in the Rhine Valley - the river runs a total of 1350kms through Germany, Netherlands, France and Switzerland.

Dylan worked on Friday and I met him at the airport to pick up the rental at 4:30pm. We left right away and got out of the city fine. I was a little nervous about him driving with the crazy Belgian drivers, but we got along great. We drove out of Belgium and through the Netherlands to get to Germany. The German highways were a little crazy, but we got used to getting out of the way of the speeding cars approaching. The Autobahn wasn't as scary as I thought it was going to be. We had a VW Polo (4 door hatchback) that maxed out at about 140km/hr, and cars were passing us like we were driving Miss Daisy! Even the highways that had speedlimits were max 130 - and cars were just using this as a guideline and drove like there was no speedlimit at all.

We arrived at our destination on Friday night - Bonn, Germany - at about 7pm and headed out to explore the city of Cologne (Koln in German). It was a really nice city with the Rhine running down the middle of it. They had an absolutely huge cathedral and a nice shopping area. We really didn't get to see too much, but we explored, walked around and tried a German beer. I would definately like to go back to Cologne to see more of the city - it is a very short train ride from Brussels. Friday night we stayed in Bonn at a nice hotel on a golfcourse in the middle of nowhere!

On Saturday we were on the road early and drove along the river to start our castle viewing. The Rhine is so big that we kinda started in the middle of the river (from Cologne) and we headed toward Rhine Valley. Most of the highway that we drove was along the river, however, in some spots, we drove through small towns to get back along the highway - this led to us getting lost quite a few times before finding our way back toward the scenic drive. We knew we were on the right track becuase we just kept the river to our right the whole time.....it was easy to tell if we were headed in the wrong direction. The map above starts in Bonn where we stayed the night, but we had a little ways to go before the highway was right along the river. Once we got situated, it was practically impossible to get lost unless you veered away from the road, which we did a few times in order to get better views of the castles. This is a picture of the first castle we saw. The area around the Rhine is loaded with vineyards. I never saw a vineyard before, but saw many fields filled with them along the drive. The coasts looked like patchwork quilts - and they were all along slopes, which means that the grapes would most likely need to be handpicked. This castle is privately owned, so we didn't get much closer, but there was a walking track along the vineyard and a parking lot at the bottom, so they were ok with people coming to see the property. As we continued along the drive, we stopped when we could to get pictures, but with a two lane highway, sometimes it was difficult.

It was funny that as we were driving along we got used to scanning the side of the mountains looking for castles, they were everywhere. There were alot of ruins and imagining the history behind them - I was in awe! This picture does not give this castle justice. It is embedded along the side of a mountain overlooking a small town. We couldn't find a way to get to it, so just took pictures from the road.

The white castle pictured is on an island in the middle of the river. It was used as a place where tolls were collected from boats passing by. There was actually a man on the island with his dog - so I assume that it is privately owned now. It would be a terrible place to live because during the day (Saturday) we saw a minimum of at least 50 barges travelling up and down the river. Some of the barges had a load on them, others were empty. Most that we saw had cars and boats on them which to me indicated that the owners lived on the barges. We did see some of this in Paris while walking along one of the canals. People actually live on the barges with their kids. I can't imagine a life like that, but would be a way to see the world.
This castle was one of my favorites. It was on the other side of the river, so we couldn't get a closer look, but for some reason, I love the zig zag driveway....kinda like Lombard Street in San Fran! While driving by we saw a few cars, so I'm not sure if it is privately owned or not. It is actually really big, although doesn't look it in the picture.

Throughout our drive, we only saw a few places where you can cross. We drove down the west side of the river, but I'm not sure if that was the best way or not. We crossed multiple bridges in Cologne and saw one when we got to Mainz, but only saw a few ferries (probably 3) along the drive. For some reason, we weren't allowed to go on a ferry with our rental - it was part of the rental agreement and they stressed the fact that we couldn't. Since we always follow the rules, we didn't cross. The highway is situated so close, that you can easily see both sides of the river and therefore most of the castles on both sides.

We arrived in Mainz later in the afternoon where we got lost for over an hour and finally stopped at a hotel to ask for directions out of the city. We were staying in Sedan, France Saturday night at the biggest castle in Europe. We drove from Mainz, Germany through Luxembourg and then into France. We arrived in Sedan late evening and at this time realized that we didn't have the name of the castle or directions to it. We tried to steal internet to look it up online on the side of the road, but weren't successful. I got out of the car and walked toward a group of teenagers and said "we are staying at a castle tonight, but aren't sure the name of it - do you happen to know if there is a castle that is a hotel closeby?" The kids looked at me like I had 5 heads and said to go up the street and turn left......Once we drove about 10 feet up the street - the biggest castle in Europe came into view - no wonder they thought I was nuts....you can probably see this monstrous building for miles around!

The castle was very cool! When we arrived we had to drive over a drawbridge to get onto the grounds where the hotel was located on the inside. It was quite large - the hotel only took up a fraction of the grounds. There was also a museum, a few restaurants and other things to see. We didn't stay too long, but roamed around in the morning a bit. It was fun to stay in a castle although it was quite modernized. Only one wall in our hotel room was the original wall, but some of the rooms in the lobby and restaurant were all stone. This was the end of our castle viewing - it was a great time! I am going to end this post here and write about Sunday next post!

Christmas in the Cape

So although I don't have any interesting post, I've decided to try to use this as a journal too in order to keep in touch with my Canadian friends back home. Thank you to everyone who has requested a new post - nice to hear that some are reading my blog!

Dylan and I had a fantastic trip home for the holidays!
We travelled between Halifax, Sydney and Poulamon quite a bit and got to spend alot of time with friends and family! The trip wasn't long enough, but of course, we were tired of living out of a suitcase for almost 3 weeks. The only person I didn't get to see was my friend Angela and her new baby, Roman - sorry about that Ang - it was part of the plan, just didn't pan out!

It was funny to get off the plane on Dec 20th and see the snow....it really was like walking into a winter wonderland! While we were there, we had about 5 snow storms and flurries almost everyday.
This picture is a new favorite of mine - Big J (my Dad) on his tractor! Now, Dad's tractor is his favorite toy - plowing snow in the winter, bushhoggin in the summer! The minute that he sees one snowflake, his eyes glaze over and he has one thing on his mind - must start up the tractor - haha! I love ya, Dad!

We had a great time in Poulamon sliding and building a snowman with Dylan's family. It was one of my favorite days - so nice to be spending time outdoors and doing something that I haven't done in years with the Boudreau's! This picture is of the final product!

It was a funny feeling coming back to Belgium, I really felt like I was coming home. Home is where you lay your head - and this is the only apartment that is mine at this point in time, so was good to get here with my own stuff (or lack of my own stuff since I only really have clothes here). I must say that I do miss a real bed and the SuperStore and all the other conveniences of being home - but at the same time, I'm happy to continue this adventure!

As many of you know, Dylan had to go back to Canada 2 days after we got back to Brussels because he lost his Uncle Stan. Stan had a great holiday with his family and he will be missed. It was great that we both got to spend time with him while we were home - we will both remember him dearly.

Dylan was gone for 10 days and I was on my own in this big city. It was fine to be on my own since Brussels is familiar to me now, but there were a few moments where I was lost on what to do to keep myself busy! Dylan returned on Saturday and we had a few days relaxing before he went back to work. The toughest thing about travelling across the ocean (besides sitting in an airplane for 6 hours) is adjusting to the time difference - last night was the first night we both slept through the night. It is so hard to adjust - even though it is only 5 hrs, it feels like you lost days of sleep.

Yesterday, we booked a trip to Barcelona for a long weekend in February. We are both really looking forward to this trip as it is one place that many people have told us we ' have to go '! It will be much warmer there than Belgium, so will be nice to wear sandals and not have to carry an umbrella with us everytime we leave the house!
Many people asked while we were home - where else do we want to go before heading back? The list is continuously expanding, but we definatley want to go to Florence, Italy (Aunt Fonnie's favorite spot), Germany (Frankfurt or Berlin), Barcelona was the top spot, and I would like to see Madrid and/or somewhere in Greece. None of these places are too far. I said to someone the other day that going to Germany is like going to Moncton - it is that close! Hopefully our travel plans will come into place soon!

We are hoping to get away somewhere this weekend - but have no idea where! The cheap tickets are non existant for this weekend, so we are going to play it by ear and hopefully get away on Saturday for a night. If all else fails, we'll go to Amsterdam. Amsterdam is such a beautiful city with it's canals and architecture - it has a small town feel to it even though it is quite a large city. It is a perfect getaway! Amsterdam is known for it's partying and sex scene, but in truth, it is a calming place (not because of the drugs) where people don't seem to be in a rush for anything. It is a place where you can walk around and people watch and have a good time doing nothing - maybe that is exactly what we need!

I hope everyone had a great holiday and brought in 2008 exactly how you wanted - I did!

Ode to my Wheelie Cart!

This one is for you, Meg!

My first taste of Europe was travelling to Italy in June 2007 - where I noticed that everyone is moving around with a load of stuff in bags, carts or boxes. Most stores, you have to pay for a bag, so it is common for people to carry their own reusable shopping bag (I keep one in my purse for emergencies - and to save the 5 cents - you all know how frugal I can be!).

When I moved to Brussels - the wheelie cart was waiting for me, thanks to Dylan! When he told me that he bought one, my thought was - what a geek - now I realize that life in Brussels would be tough without it! I was a little embarrassed at first dragging it behind me - now I take it almost everytime I leave the house. It is great for the market, grocery store and even transporting furniture (the futon story).

Today I took my wheelie cart to the GB (grocery store) where I bought 6 x 1.5L of bubbly water for Dylan, 2 x 5L jugs of regular water for me, 1L of milk and 1L of lime extract (to make mojitos - my new drink of choice). This is a total of 21 litres of heavy liquid - which I transported easily with the help of my 'muscle'.

The convienience of the wheelie cart is unimaginable in a city where public transportation and foot traffic are maximized - and parking is at a minimum!

I love my wheelie cart!