A belated finish to our blog

Ghent - Wednesday 5 August

After a comfortable, warm (we realised in the morning that the heater was on all night) and a little noisy night, we were able to leave the car in the hotel grounds ‘til we were ready to leave Ghent. The PoortAckere Monasterium Hotel was a great place to stay with its big rooms various buildings and the old chapel. The monastery cemetery still has some occupants, but most had to be moved to allow the construction of a car park for the hotel. We explored the monastery site and then walked into town. Rick’s stomach and head were not at their best (no, the head normally isn’t, is it), so we had a slow walk into town, only 5 mins away. Strange, but we ended up beside a canal and followed it into a busy, beautiful part of town. Another boat trip along another canal and well worth while. Guess what? Ghent also has a very impressive belfry. The only problem is that there was a head and stomach that felt they couldn’t walk up the 91 metre tall tower. The person concerned is partly ashamed to admit to taking the modern lift most of the way. Very disappointing, because stairs are there to be climbed. The view from the top, though, was fantastic. Building began in 1313 and as for many other belfries, was added to over the time. Coffee time after this. finally worked out the best coffee to have in Belgium, turns out it is the standard coffee. Lungo is a standard cup of black coffee with a bit of pourable cream on the side. This coffee was made all the better by being straight Arabica. Tummy loved it.

Ghent is another beautiful city and we were glad we detoured.

 

Ghent is a beautiful town (as are so many Belgian towns) with the expected belfry, canals, town hall and a great coffee shop.

Ghent to Ieper (if Belgian or Ypres if French) Thursday 6th August

We spent most of today looking at cemeteries looked after by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. They look after over 150 cemeteries in many countries. Gary had done lots of research, and we were able to find the Lijssenthoek Cemetery and locate the grave of a relative, Colin Smith, brother of Ross & Keith Smith who were the first, along with their navigator and mechanic, to fly from England to Australia in 1919. Seeing all the headstones, so neatly arranged, was a bit confronting and this was a relatively small cemetery.

 

We stopped at a couple of others, with the final one today Tyne Cot at Passchendaele. During the Third Battle of Ypres (1917), the British lost nearly 300,000 men. Nearly 12,000 soldiers of the Commonwealth are buried here. There are many headstones for unidentified soldiers buried here as well. The huge wall at the back of the cemetery commemorates an additional 34,597 missing soldiers, who died after mid August 1917. There are more than 55,000 missing soldiers, who died before this date, honoured by name on the Menin Gate. The huge Tyne Cot cemetery is very confronting, putting all the unnecessary deaths right out there. Without all of the megalomaniacs, greedy, power hungry “important” people, Makes you wonder why we are on this earth, born, hopefully do some good for humanity, kill people and die.

Back to the car and off to Ieper. Set the shortest distance rather than fastest on the GPS to take us along some of the smaller roads. When we got near the centre of Ieper, we followed a sign to a B&B, in a very residential area. We were lucky, there were 2 rooms, very comfortable (the 4 of us have to share a bathroom, but that’s fine) and we booked in for 3 nights. The lady who runs it was very helpful with tourist info and maps. We had no idea we were so close to the centre of town and we have to go through the Menin Gate to get into the city square (900 metres away). We walked in and found a restaurant with simple meals, just what we needed. Gary & Rick both had a very tasty Belgian beer, a Keyte dobble tripel brown.  We walked back, towards the Menin Gate, where the Last Post was about to start (at 8 pm). There were too many (hundreds) people there to see what was happening, but we plan to be there early on Friday night to see all. The Last Post has been played there every night, except during the second world war, since 1928 in remembrance of the allies who died in the “Great War”. It was very moving.

    

 

Friday 7 August

After the ‘phone call at 2am, we spent most of the day ‘phoning Australia arranging plane tickets back home, talking to the insurance company, arranging to return the car early and waiting for return ‘phone calls. We were a bit stunned and most of the day passed in a blur. Fortunately we were able to arrange everything we needed to, including booking the very comfortable Mercure hotel at Charles de Gaulle airport, Paris and planning our route there. We went back in to the Menin Gate early and had front row viewing of the ceremony.

Saturday 8 August

After 3 very pleasant nights in a very comfortable B&B with a great hostess in Ieper, we set off towards Paris via the Railway Dugouts Burial Ground (Transport Farm), Zillebeke, the Windmill Australian Memorial, Pozieres and Villers Bretonneux cemetery and Australian Memorial, and the Adelaide Cemetery near by, where our great uncle, Douglas Fordyce is buried. Again, seeing all of the grave headstones really re-inforces the huge losses as a result of wars. One interesting light moment was when we got to the main cemetery at Villers Bretonneux and saw about 15 Australian MGs, 9 from Victoria, from the Australian MG car club, that had been shipped over in containers and were cruising through France and Italy before meeting the UK car club at Lands End, Cornwall.

  

When we finished here, we drove through the village of Villers Bretonneaux and saw the school that “will never forget Australia” We headed in the general direction of Paris and found an Ibis hotel in Roye, not far away. We had to clean and vacuum the car before returning it on Sunday afternoon and fortunately there was a car wash, very close to the hotel, in the industrial area. Job done.

Sunday 9 August

We didn’t spend a lot of time sight seeing, but did take some more minor roads for a bit of nice scenery. There was a need for a toilet stop mid morning, so we turned off the main road into a very pretty village, Senlis (didn’t know until we drove into the village) and sat in the sun outside a little cafe with some good coffee. As we knew what the next few days were going to be like, we took our time and enjoyed our last bit of our holiday.

Next stop was the Mercure hotel at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. Very comfortable with big rooms to spread out and repack, coffee pod machine in our “Privelege room”. We had a nice last dinner in the dining room, with, as you’d expect, a nice bottle of French wine. Rick & Gill left first in the morning to catch a Virgin Australia (Etihad) flight home and Gary & Jan followed a couple of hours later on Malaysian. We arrived in Melbourne a couple of hours apart on Tuesday morning. Good to be home, but…..