Day 3 - Albert to Lille

Day 3 - Albert to Lille - Amiens - Blangy-Tronville - Villers Bretonneux - Harbonnieres - Peronne - Bellicourt - Cabaret Farm - Lille

After breakfast we drove into the centre of Albert, and walked around Rue Birmingham, looked at the outside of the Notre Dame church on the main town square, which was heavily shelled and during WW1 the golden statue atop of mother and child leaned over at a perilous angle like a diver - being nicknamed "Fanny Durack" by the Aussies. Parking on a side-street was fairly easy and because we had a full day planned we didn't look at any of their museums or go inside the church. We popped into an Aldi supermarket to buy some food for lunch, and other snacks.  It was a strange feeling also to be walking down those main streets where thousands of our troops marched into and out of battle through this wrecked little town.

Albert - mother & child statue above Notre Dame church

From Albert it was a short drive into the centre of Amiens, and we found a Pay and Display parking spot on the street, just around the corner from the magnificent cathedral. We took around 30 minutes to look around inside the church and enjoy some of the medieval buildings close by.

Amiens cathedral

Medieval building opposite cathedral in Amiens

Amiens cathedral - stained glass

Amiens cathedral - crying cherub

Amiens cathedral - plaque thanking AIF in WW1

From Amiens we headed back east, past the old British airfield at Glisy, aiming for the Chateau at Blangy-Tronville, to see where the officers of the 13th and 15th Brigade were quartered.  As a private, my grandfather in the 57th Battalion (15th Brigade) would have been quartered in or around the picturesque village nearby, in the lead-up to 25 April 1918.

Chateau at Blangy-Tronville

Soon after we paused on the outskirts of Villers-Bretonneuxj, near Bois Abbe, to read some of the description of the 57th Battalion's actions there on 25 April 1918, as told by W H Downing in his memoir "To the Last Ridge". We then drove to the Australian National Memorial, where I was hoping there might be a public toilet - alas - none! We spent around an hour at the memorial, planting some crosses and looking for my great-uncle's name memorialised on the wall in the 45th Battalion list, and then taking in the marvellous view from the top of the tower. Whilst there we again read battle descriptions and tried to imagine the scene on the day.

Australian National Memorial - Villers Bretonneux

57th Battalion swept up (towards
 left) to Villers-Bretonneux on 25 April 1918 

From top of tower at Australian National Memorial near Villers-Bretonneux - immense views across this bloodied landscape

Driving back into the little town of Villers-Bretonneux we found the school where the Franco-Australian Museum is located - which thankfully also has toilets! We would have liked to stay longer here as they have an excellent movie playing continuously, but we couldn't stay beyond about 45 minutes.  Most shops in VB close for several hours over lunch, so we were glad to have our food purchased earlier in Albert - french bread stick with excellent cheese and tomatoes, in the very pretty park in the centre of town, near their own war memorial.

Musee Franco-Australia
at Villers-Bretonneux school

Park in Villers-Bretonneux

We then tried to follow the route taken by the 57th Battalion on 8 August 1918 - "Germany's blackest day" - as the allies made incredible advances and pushed the Germans back.  The 57th set out from east of Villers-Bretonneux and pushed all the way to Harbonnieres on that first day.  We drove back roads past Marcelcave to Harbonnieres, and then on to Peronne to stop and get a proper look at the Somme River.

8 August 1918 - 57th Bttn fighting past Marcelcave

Harbonnieres - 8 August 1918 objective achieved

Somme at Peronne

Time was running out on our last day so after Harbonnieres we headed for Bellicourt, on the St Quentin canal via many idyllic villages along the way. At Bellicourt we parked near the southern mouth of the St Quentin canal tunnel, also located near the Hindenberg Line arrays of barbed wire - now only to be imagined.  The 57th Battalion fought through here, and then up to Cabaret Farm.

St Quentin Canal -
above tunnel entrance at Bellicourt

Hindenberg Line outside Bellicourt

Cabaret Farm area near Bellicourt

We left Bellicourt around 5.30pm and headed back to Lille, on faster motorways, and returned our car at Europe Station in Lille about 7pm.

At the end of our 3 days we felt we had only caught a glimpse of the horrors endured by all involved in the war, but we also relished the incredible natural beauty of the landscape and villages we had passed through.  As imperfect as our trip had been we realise we may not get another chance to go again and were glad to have tried to see and understand, and pay our respects.

Day 2 - Ieper to Albert

Day 2  Ieper - Albert - Hellfire Corner - Messines - Ploegsteert - Fromelles - Vimy Ridge - Moeuvres & Canal du Nord - Barastre - Stormy Trench - Pozieres - Mouquet Farm - Thiepval - Albert

We left Ieper, stopping to take photos of the Ramparts Cemetery, and drove past Hellfire Corner (busy roundabout - not easy to stop and relive the WWI atmosphere), aiming for Messines and Ploegsteert.  At dinner the previous night a local Belgian had told us that Ploegsteert was an under-appreciated cemetery and worth visiting. We stopped briefly (around 10.15am) at the round tower in the Irish Peace Park near Messines, and then again at Ploegsteert Memorial (aka Hyde Park Corner or Plug Street) around 10.30am.  Crossing the border we travelled via Armentieres onwards to Fromelles, and VC Corner by about 11.25.  We stayed a little while, before travelling via Lens to the Canadian National Memorial at Vimy Ridge (arriving around 12.45pm), a hugely impressive vantage point and memorial, where we spent about an hour, including walking through the original trench system around 500m away from the main splendid memorial. 

Vimy Ridge - original trench positions - unexploded bombs still in grassy surrounds

Canadian Memorial at Vimy Ridge

To make up some time we drove on the A26 tollway to Moeuvres via Marquion, and drove around Moeuvres trying to find the location where my maternal grandfather's machine gun nest was located above the Canal du Nord, in the epic Battle of Cambrai German counter-attack on 30 November 1917.  We were fairly confident we found the approximate position, thanks to a detailed description of the landscape in Captain Eric Bird's book "Machine Gunner on the Somme".  Some of the local residents must have wondered what we were doing as we drove up and down streets and rural roads, and clambered in and out of the car with our book and map in hand. We spent from about 2-3.30pm around the area, on both sides of the canal, as it was very moving to re-read the vivid description of the battle in Bird's book, for which he received an MC, and my grandfather was nominated for one.  It was easy to place the action on the landscape around us.  

Near Moeuvres - grandfather's machine gun position on 30 November 1917 - Battle of Cambrai

We then drove a few kilometres down the road to try and find the site of a large crater, which featured in a story about my grandfather in Bird's book, apparently located near the cross-road of the Bapaume-Cambrai road and the Dermicourt-Moeuvres road.  I wandered around the cross road for a while until I finally realised that the huge weedy hole right next to it must be the crater.  I think the road must have been relocated slightly because of the crater after the war.  Again, a moving moment to realise the peril my grandfather had been in near this very spot in late November 1917.  

Crater near Moeuvres at cross-roads - trees growing from centre of big crater

We drove then a few kilometres past Velu Woods to find Barastre.  Somewhere in the fields near Barastre my English grandfather received a 'Blighty wound' on 23 March 1918, during the German Spring Offensive. A few kilometres away we located Stormy Trench, just outside Gueudeaucourt, and quite near a Canadian Newfoundland Memorial, where my maternal great-uncle was killed in a raid on 21 February 1917.  The line of the trench is slightly visible amongst the fields, but not really possible to walk along. 

Ploughed field including Stormy Trench, near Gueudecourt - where my great-uncle was killed

Newfoundland Memorial, near Stormy Trench, near Gueudecourt

A few kilometres away is the Pozieres Windmill memorial, and across the road is the Tank Memorial. 

Windmill Memorial, Pozieres

British Tank Corps Memorial, opposite Windmill Memorial at Pozieres

After paying our respects here, we drove along towards the Thiepval Memorial, past Mouquet Farm.

Mouquet Farm AIF Memorial, near Pozieres

Albert was close by and we arrived around 6.30pm.  Being spring, the evenings are light until reasonably late so we were able to accomplish a lot during daylight hours.

Day 1 - Lille to Ieper (Ypres)

Day 1 Lille - Ieper - Passchendaele - Tyne Cot - Zonnebeke - Hill 61 - Cloth Hall - Menin Gate

Drove away from Lille around 10am, heading north, gradually getting more and more lost in Lille suburbs until we switched on French sat-nav.  We wanted to go through Marcq-en-Barceul and then via Menen (Menin) to get onto rural roads via Moorslede to Passendale (Passchendael) and Tyne Cot.  Somewhere on the outskirts of Lille I felt the call of nature but finding a public toilet in France or Belgium is always a bit of a problem when driving.  We called in to a garage (in Australia garages always have toilets) who directed us to a garden centre down the road, who of course required a few Euro-cents for the privilege of using their toilets (always carry a lot of change for toilets!).  We stopped at Tyne Cot at around 12pm to view the display and walk around this enormous cemetery. Parking was at a premium but we squeezed in to the free car park.  We were too overcome by the enormity of what we were about to experience over the next few days to take any pictures at Tyne Cot itself. We then drove on to Zonnebeke Museum (Zonnebeke Chateau) which was beautiful grounds and quite a good recreated trench system and museum.

Re-created officer's dug-out at Zonnebeke Museum

We spent about an hour there before going on to Hill 60 and Caterpillar Craters.

Re-purposed German pill-box at Hill 60

Caterpillar Crater, near Hill 60

After walking around the craters we drove into Ieper via the Menin Gate and found somewhere to park and were checked in to our hotel by 3.45pm.  We walked the short distance to the magnificent Cloth Hall and the In Flanders Fields Museum inside.  The last entry was at 5pm and the museum closed at 6pm, which was just sufficient time for us to view all the exhibits.  Some excellent archival film, along with sound effects, and a wealth of information on the tragic impact of the war.  The Great Market Square was busy and as we wanted to be early to the Menin Gate to get a reasonable position to view the ceremony we headed down there shortly after 7pm by which time a sizeable crowd had already formed.  Unknown to us there was a special ceremony planned, honouring the Scottish Black Watch, so an even bigger crowd but compensated by their pipe band, and a terrific choir singing Danny Boy, which brought us to tears.   

You could feel the ghosts of soldiers as they marched out through the Gate, probably to their death in the ghastly killing fields.

The Last Post ceremony at 8pm followed, and then after taking some photos we walked along to the De Reyffelaer Restaurant for our 8.30pm booking for dinner.  After dinner we strolled the streets around the Cloth Hall, taking in the various monuments and impressive buildings.

Ieper Cloth Hall at night

Ieper war memorial

Planning a 3-day WWI Battlefields trip

In early 2014 I planned a 3-day self-guided trip around the World War One battlefields of Belgium and France for myself and husband. Both my grandfathers fought here, one in the AIF (57th Battalion - 15th Brigade - 5th Division) and one with the BEF (21st Battalion Royal Fusiliers - then Machine Gun Corps - 242 Company later D Company in 2nd Battalion MGC), so my connection was very personal.  My father had always wanted to visit to see where his father had fought with the AIF, but had never had the opportunity, and in a way I was doing this trip for him even though he too has been dead for over a decade.  Through my genealogy research and collating various documents associated with my grandfathers' war service records, plus some excellent first-hand accounts published by members of both grandfathers' battalions, I put together a short itinerary that would visit some of the major battlefields and memorials, as well as specific battlefields associated with my grandfathers.  I outline on separate posts the day by day itineraries, with linked google maps.

The tour itself was somewhat difficult to plan and carry out as the battlefields and locations are mostly in very rural areas, which makes navigation and self-driving challenging.  Having researched for several months I came to the conclusion that the tour would be better done away from the main European summer months to lessen the anticipated high volume of battlefield visitors with the commencement of the 100th anniversary of the start of the war.  We chose 3 days in early May which turned out to be delightful weather and spring scenery, but even so was quite busy in terms of finding hotels, and growing visitor numbers at various sites.

My plan was that my husband would drive and I would navigate, and along the way I would read out various first-hand accounts from the books I had in relation to specific battles and places.  We were also aiming to follow some battle progressions via walking the route, with a guidebook.  Although we did quite well overall we found that it was extremely difficult to both navigate and 'inform' and almost impossible to absorb the amount of history both visually and on the pages of my various source books and still cover the amount of territory we needed to.  It was equally difficult to do many of the planned walks of the battlefields, given that we had underestimated the amount of time it took travelling and finding the correct locations, parking etc.

Peter Pederson's invaluable
guide book on the AIF
on the Western Front

Captain Bird's descriptive book, in which
my English grandfather is
frequently mentioned

W H Downing's very detailed book
on his 57th Battalion experiences, alongside my Australian grandfather

We had decided against booking specific history tours but at times we realised that those tour groups (who we frequently came across) were getting more information than ourselves.  By halfway through the first day I felt I was letting us both down as I couldn't keep up with working out where we were and matching it with relevant information.  Once I got over that crisis and decided to just visit the memorials that we wanted to see and try and only work out battle sites for very specific locations things were a little less stressful.

LILLE AS OUR KICK-OFF AND RETURN POINT

We booked our Eurostar seats from London St Pancras (where we had been on a driving holiday in the UK),  to Lille early on a Saturday morning.  For general train and booking information I used www.seat61.com, whose rail info site is a goldmine of information on train travel all over the world.  I made the actual bookings for GBP39.00 each in mid-December (as soon as the cheap fares came on sale) directly with www.eurostar.com, and the whole process was very simple.  The only blunder I made though was selecting seats (Carriage 2, seats 27 and 28) which turned out to have a restricted view.  This was our first-ever trip on Eurostar and we thought it great.  Easy to check-in and board and in no time we were through the tunnel and at Lille Europe Station.  From Lille our plan was to drive north to Ieper (Ypres) and then loop back into France taking in the Somme regions before returning to Lille at the end of the third day.

CAR HIRE - GET ENGLISH SAT-NAV!

Our car rental from Lille Europe Station was an Audi A4 car through www.citer.fr, who were very efficient in handling the reservation.  Unfortunately we did not ask for an English version of the navigation system (thinking wrongly that we would manage with maps and smart-phone navigation).  My Marco Polo map (1:300,000 / 1cm=3km) of Northern France (Ile de France, East Normandy, Picardy) included Ieper but as we headed out of Lille we quickly became lost and the map was just not detailed enough.  We ended up using the car's French navigation, and my husband luckily remembered enough schoolboy French to understand the general directions, but I would strongly recommend getting English sat-nav if you hire a car.  Our paper map was generally useful in planning but we ended up relying a lot on the French navigator over the 3 days driving.  We realised it would be very costly trying to use our smart-phones as navigators and abandoned that idea, and we also were not sure how far our Vodafone coverage from UK would last.  On returning the car we completely forgot to fill up with fuel before returning (because we were paying so much attention to the French sat-nav to ensure we could find the right way of getting into the station car park) and Citer only charged us the regular price for fuel on our later statement.

WHERE TO STAY

I always research hotels for both cost and convenience, as we don't have an unlimited budget.  If there is also some charm that is a bonus, but not essential.

IEPER (Flanders, Belgium)

Ieper is a relatively small town, beautifully restored to pre-war splendour, and very popular.  By booking some months in advance I was able to secure a room at the Ambrosia Hotel, very centrally located in a town that is easy to walk around.  We ended up with a charming room (EUR120 including breakfast) on the second floor (steep and narrow staircase up however) right under the roof.  Wonderful to hear the bells from the nearby church ringing.  The hosts were very welcoming and the cooked breakfast fantastic.

Ambrosia Hotel, Ieper

 We ended up parking our car a block away on another street but this wasn't a problem.

Parking is easy in Ieper

We ate dinner at De Ruyffelaer Restaurant, an easy walk from our hotel and the main square or Menin Gate, and also so popular that bookings may need to be made weeks in advance.  We booked about 2 months in advance and enjoyed the typical Flemish menu and quirky atmosphere.

ALBERT (Somme, France)

Initially we tried to book a hotel right in the heart of town, but our first choices were either full or parking was going to be a problem. The Ibis Albert, just a couple of kilometres out of town on a business park, turned out to be ideal however.  Plenty of parking, adequate in-house restaurant, very clean and comfortable (if a little spartan) rooms and clearly a choice for a lot of other battlefield tourists.  There were a couple of other large groups of English tourers (motorbikes and by car) also staying there.  Had we wished to dine in Albert (if anything had been open on a Sunday night!) we could have easily driven or perhaps walked into town.  We had booked a flexible rate of EUR75 excluding breakfast, which was reasonable.  

LILLE

We were due to leave Lille the next day by train, so booked Ibis Budget Lille Centre on a very cheap rate of EUR49.  I had doubts when booking and my low expectations were fulfilled. I would recommend you research and book somewhere else.