13. Solemnity

 We’ve had a busy few days so I’m catching up now. I shall apologize in advance. These photos are out of order. I don’t know how to correct that. I do believe it’s maybe been challenging to figure out which post to read so you are doing so chronologically. To help with that I’m now starting to number them. This one is post 13. 

On Sunday night we spent the evening in a small town outside of Vimy, called Ecurie. We started off Monday morning at the Canadian National Vimy Memorial. It is a sight to behold. I found the name of my grandfather’s brother, N. Hanks, inscribed here. We have the telegram in our family that was sent to his parents with notification that he had died in the service of war.

The Visitor Centre employees, again staffed by young Canadian guides, gave us a tour of the trenches. It is so nice to see the Canadian flag and to chat to a young person from Canada when we are far away from home. Their sincerity and warmth is welcoming. 

Look at the ivy trailing up the trees. It is a frequent site in the wooded area of Passchendaele. 

This is one of the poppy shaped landscape gardens. This one is for Canada.

Grandpa in a reconstructed trench. The normal ones would be 8 feet high on one side. 

The Menin Gate

Today we left bright and early for our drive into Belgium. It was a pretty hairy (or should that read hair-raising) drive on the highways between Ecurie and Belgium up near Passchendaele. The motorways have huge signs reminding people to go 130 km an hour and there are so many trucks. David indicated it really was worse than driving on the 401 in Toronto which always gives us pause to think twice about where we are going. Thankfully the bad traffic wasn’t for the whole trip and it was really only a 90 minute drive. 

I really like Belgium. The part that we are in is beautiful farm country and the majority of the homes have all been updated and renovated and a few brand new constructions are going up. The roads are all much wider here, yet you still have many of the old buildings and the character that maintains for the communities. Many of the storefronts seem to be in new construction buildings. I get a sense that architecture is quite prevalent and at the forefront of people’s minds here. I know that where we are was quite decimated in World War I so that explains the buildings being newer than in France where we were, but these buildings are like newer in the last five years I would say. And it seems to be the case in all of the communities that we are in. It’s quite difficult to figure out which town we are in at any given time as they all seem to run into one another. 

We are staying in a really warm and comfy bed and breakfast. We have 15 beautiful horses grazing outside our bedroom window and the owner of our property has a huge backyard for children to play in. She also  has a screened in gazebo for her pet parakeets. A bonus for me is the huge kitchen at our disposal to cook, prepare food, use a stove, microwave and fridge. 

We started Tuesday morning going to the Saint Julien site. This has a spectacular monument erected called The Brooding Soldier. It was the first monument built and then Canada decided that the Vimy Memorial Statue was going to be the official statue and monument where the names of the soldiers who died in the First World War are inscribed. 

Next we headed to Canada Gate. This is a memorial garden set up to honour the soldiers who didn’t make it back to Canada. It is designed by a Halifax architect and matches a similar gate in Halifax where the soldiers departed, and here near Passchendaele from where they did not return. 

We then drove to the Menin Gate. It was quite a spectacular site to see. It is currently under a significant renovation but it is a very emotional piece of history. Every night at 8:00 pm the police stop the traffic and a bugler plays the Last Post. 

The Passchendaele Museum was an older museum than most on our trip. It starts out with a visit on the second floor of an old building and then it takes you downstairs into a “Dug Out” where you see exactly what life was like while living and operating out of a “Dug Out.” Not my thing. I will not be going back. Then we got to experience walking through the trenches. The eight foot high sandbagged walls and the duckboard flooring that was placed so soldiers didn’t get their feet too wet was less frightening for me. This museum is set in an area that is really beautifully treed and there are extensive walking paths to follow. We walked a path that had eight centres displayed in the shape of a red poppy. Each of the centres represented a country that had been a part of the war including Canada, the U.S., Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, France, and Belgium, and Germany. Each country was allowed to decorate their space in a way that is reminiscent of where the soldiers had come from. 

And finally, we ended the day with a drive to Tyne Cot Cemetery. Oh my goodness, this was a visit which was so impactful. It is the largest Commonwealth war cemetery in the world in terms of burials. There are so many headstones to honour the soldiers who died. In all, 880,000 British forces died in the First World War. The names of 35,000 of them from the UK and New Zealand whose graves are not known are inscribed on a memorial wall that goes around part of the cemetery. 

Tyne Cot Cemetery

This is a massive monument called “Canada Mourning Her Beloved Sons” at Vimy. To climb up the
steep steps was a journey, as it should be. It is carved from a single, 30 tonne block of stone and is engraved with the
11, 285 names of Canadians who have no grave known in France.