Where's Bertie? He's still at the Aire just outside of Ypres.
Weather: Still bitingly cold, but turning to sunshine this afternoon.
Making an effort this morning, warm clothing was donned and off we set for the 25-minute walk into Ypres. The walk there was fine, as we were moving at quite a lick and we were dressed for a winter hill-walking expedition (boots, Paramo trousers, insulated jackets whose hoods were employed over our hats).
It's not feasible, however, to walk around a town, sightseeing, at the same pace, so once there we soon cooled.
As we rounded the corner and caught sight of these buildings a 'gosh' or similar escaped each of us. It's said that the 'Lakenhalle' (the main building in this snap) is one of the finest buildings in Belgium, and on our very limited experience to date, that would seem to be a valid claim.
The fortified town (complete with moat)...
...looks historic, but at the same time looks very neat. The reason is that the place was almost entirely destroyed in the First World War, and subsequently reconstructed. By all appearances, to my untrained eye, the reconstruction was done very sympathetically to the town's historic roots (the Lakenhalle, for example (see the first snap above) was originally built in the early 1300s, with the rebuild completing in the late 1960s), but the rebuild has resulted in clean lines and a lack of age-related decay.
I'm sure we'll return to the town sometime, on a much warmer day and not on a Monday, so that we can visit the 'In Flanders Fields' museum and look around with more enthusiasm than today's weather allowed. For today we simply wandered around a bit, dived into a coffee shop, bought Belgian chocolates (because we're leaving Belgium tomorrow and hadn't had any yet)...
...and headed back to Bertie, via the Menin Gate.
The Menin Gate was built in the 1920s and, as well as being a gate into the town, is a memorial listing the names of the 24,896 UK and Commonwealth men who were lost in this area in WW1 and whose bodies were never found.
Since 1928, with the exception of the period of WW2 between 1940 and 1944, a ceremony has been held at that gate nightly at 8pm, including the bugling of the Last Post and the laying of a wreath.
For those whose bodies were found, there are military cemeteries all around - we drove past one just before we reached the Aire and can see another from where we are sitting.
We had thought, once we were back in the warmth of Bertie, that we would be in for the rest of the day, but as the sun came out this afternoon, I was lulled into the thought that another walk around the adjacent lake would be nice. It was nice too (and we got the treat of watching a grebe-like bird catch and eat a fish), but the sun was deceiving: the wind was still throwing a cheek-numbing chill at us on the outward leg.
We are now in for the rest of the day (it is approaching 6pm as I type) and I'd best spend a few minutes looking at the options for where we are going to spend the last night of this trip, as well as looking up a convenient LPG station. Considering how much of this trip has been spent on electric hook-up, we've got through a large amount of gas. Good job it's so cheap in Belgium.
Weather: Still bitingly cold, but turning to sunshine this afternoon.
Making an effort this morning, warm clothing was donned and off we set for the 25-minute walk into Ypres. The walk there was fine, as we were moving at quite a lick and we were dressed for a winter hill-walking expedition (boots, Paramo trousers, insulated jackets whose hoods were employed over our hats).
It's not feasible, however, to walk around a town, sightseeing, at the same pace, so once there we soon cooled.
As we rounded the corner and caught sight of these buildings a 'gosh' or similar escaped each of us. It's said that the 'Lakenhalle' (the main building in this snap) is one of the finest buildings in Belgium, and on our very limited experience to date, that would seem to be a valid claim.
The fortified town (complete with moat)...
...looks historic, but at the same time looks very neat. The reason is that the place was almost entirely destroyed in the First World War, and subsequently reconstructed. By all appearances, to my untrained eye, the reconstruction was done very sympathetically to the town's historic roots (the Lakenhalle, for example (see the first snap above) was originally built in the early 1300s, with the rebuild completing in the late 1960s), but the rebuild has resulted in clean lines and a lack of age-related decay.
I'm sure we'll return to the town sometime, on a much warmer day and not on a Monday, so that we can visit the 'In Flanders Fields' museum and look around with more enthusiasm than today's weather allowed. For today we simply wandered around a bit, dived into a coffee shop, bought Belgian chocolates (because we're leaving Belgium tomorrow and hadn't had any yet)...
...and headed back to Bertie, via the Menin Gate.
The Menin Gate was built in the 1920s and, as well as being a gate into the town, is a memorial listing the names of the 24,896 UK and Commonwealth men who were lost in this area in WW1 and whose bodies were never found.
Since 1928, with the exception of the period of WW2 between 1940 and 1944, a ceremony has been held at that gate nightly at 8pm, including the bugling of the Last Post and the laying of a wreath.
For those whose bodies were found, there are military cemeteries all around - we drove past one just before we reached the Aire and can see another from where we are sitting.
We had thought, once we were back in the warmth of Bertie, that we would be in for the rest of the day, but as the sun came out this afternoon, I was lulled into the thought that another walk around the adjacent lake would be nice. It was nice too (and we got the treat of watching a grebe-like bird catch and eat a fish), but the sun was deceiving: the wind was still throwing a cheek-numbing chill at us on the outward leg.
We are now in for the rest of the day (it is approaching 6pm as I type) and I'd best spend a few minutes looking at the options for where we are going to spend the last night of this trip, as well as looking up a convenient LPG station. Considering how much of this trip has been spent on electric hook-up, we've got through a large amount of gas. Good job it's so cheap in Belgium.
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