Ypres and the Menin Gate

[Billggski]

Just back from a long weekend visiting the Ypres cemeteries and battlefields. About an hour from Calais.

Six blokes in a MH!

The camping in Ypres (Ieper) is very good, with separate motorhome pitches, in threes, so the middle one is to be avoided.

It is about ten minute walk to the town and Menin Gate where the last post is played every day at 8pm.

There is an Aire right next to the gate though, a quite cul-de-sac with about 20 pitches,

A very good playground for kids between the site and the Aire.

Ypres is surprisingly picturesque, as it was all rebuilt from rubble after WW1.

If you go, and the Tour de France leaves there in June, visit the Cloth Hall, which has an amazing exhibition of the Ypres salient, the Paschendaal Museum, with trenches and dugouts, and the Tyne Cot Cemetery for starters. There's about 170 cemeteries all told, the British and commonwealth were the only countries to bury the soldiers where they fell, most with no name apart from that recorded on the Menin Gate memorial.

There is a 45K cycle route around the sites mostly on dedicated cycle roads, map from the campsite.

If you want to attend the last post ceremony, get there before 7.30 or you will be standing a long way away.

It's a worthwhile detour if you are travelling through Germany, but an unforgettable experience.

 

[Madge Gentle]

A recent picture of the Menin Gate at night -

[Archiesgrandad]

To those who haven't been, DO IT! The same applies to Oradour. As time passes it is too easy to forget that all those people named were just ordinary people like us, doing what they thought was right to make things better for others. God bless them.

AGD