April 6 & 7
The last two days we spent touring some of the WWI battlefields, monuments and cemeteries in the Somme Valley. The battle of Sommes started on July 1, 1916 and lasted until November of that year. But, fighting continued in the area for another 3 years, with very little gains made by either side.
Because I don’t know if when we’ll get another good connection, I’ll just upload pictures tonight and add commentary later. Besides it’s after 11pm and I’m getting tired.
We started yesterday (Friday) in Aimens.
Peter took a video during an organ recital at the church. It was beautiful.
After Amiens we went to Peronne where we visited the Museum of the Great War. We spent the night there last night.
Today (Saturday 4/7) we did the trail of remembrance from Peronne to Albert. Our first stop was the cemetery at Rancourt where over 8,000 French military are buried.
There were many random monuments and cemeteries scattered all over the area. Here are just a few.
In the town of Poziers, we saw a bunker nicknamed Gibraltar by the Brits after it was captured from the Germans. There’s not too much of it left but in one of the museums we saw a picture of it just after the British took it over.
The Australian Monument
The next few pictures are from the battlefield where the Canadians from Newfoundland fought. It’s the only “intact” battlefield we’ve seen. They lost over 90% of their men in this battle. The paths you see are what’s left of the actual trenches.
Our final museum of the day (we did two today and one yesterday) was very cool. We went underground and the museum told the story of what life in the trenches was like. This was in Albert.
So, that was our last two days. I learned more about WWI then I learned in school. A guide is not necessary as I have Peter, who knows absolutely everything there is to know about the Great War, WWII and just about any other war you can imagine. While I’ve been uploading pictures, he’s been looking at our itinerary for the next couple of days. Tomorrow we’re headed to Ypers in Belgium where there was a big WWI battle, then we’ll switch focus back to WWII when we visit Dunkirk. I haven’t been there yet either so it will be nice to see it. I’m not sure what he’s got after that or where we’ll spend the night. That’s why we’ve been staying in hotels for the last two nights. We didn’t know until literally hours before we arrived (tonight it was only an hour) where we were going to go, and a hotel is easier than Airbnb for last minute reservations. So, your guess is as good as mine where we’ll be tomorrow night. Hopefully wherever it is they’ll have another super-fast internet connection. This was great!