Tenth (and final) Boat Day

  Today rain was predicted, and while the skies were a bit gloomy, so far (fingers crossed) there was no rain. We have been away from home for two weeks and we have only had one day of rain. I don’t mind the rain at home, but it’s nice to have none when you’re on holiday. 

We docked in Zeebrugge at 7:00 AM, but we were up at 6 AM as I had an excursion booked for 8AM. It’s going to be a long, full day, so I made sure I had plenty of Cherry Halls Cough Drops, Ha! 

We had breakfast at the buffet, and then went to the theatre where we met our tour guide and were on a bus by 7:45, and were on our way to Tyne Cot Cemetery. Don’t recognize the name? Better known (although a bit incorrectly) as Flanders Fields. 🌺

A bit of history here: Flanders is a region in Belgium. Many intense battles were fought in the fields there in WW1, thus the moniker “Flander’s Fields”. Tyne Cot Cemetery is one of many cemeteries in Flanders, and is the largest and most well known.  You’ve all seen it in Remembrance Day pictures and videos. 

There are approximately 22,000 soldiers buried here, over 8,000 of them are unidentified. Their headstones simply say “A Soldier of the Great War” with “Known Unto God” at the bottom.

Some of the had enough identification on them so that their country was known, so that was on their headstone. 

The amount of headstones was incredible, and they were all immaculately taken care of. 

You can see a curved wall to the left, it forms the boundary of the cemetery and has an additional 35,000 names on it of soldiers who are still missing and have no grave.

There are also 4 German headstones, 1 identified and 3 unknown.  The German army had an advanced medical pillbox here during the war, where some Germans died and were buried. When the Allies captured it, the German graves were left in situ and as the area became a cemetery for Commonwealth soldiers, they were left there, basically as a sign of humanity. 

After we spent some time here, we went to the town of Ypres, which I learned is pronounced sort of like “Oprah”, but more like “eeeee-prah” and roll that “r” if your tongue works that way!

Before we went into the town, we passed through the Menin Gate, which is a memorial to the missing. There are over 55,000 names carved into the stone of men who have no known grave. To this day bodies are still being found during excavations, farmland being tilled and so forth. If they are identified then their name is removed from Menin Gate and they are given a burial in Tyne Cot, with a headstone.

The Leperlee Canal which partially surrounds Ypres

The Menin Gate Memorial

Some of the names of the 55,000. And this is touching: Every single night at 8pm, without fail, the police stop all the traffic coming and going through the Gate, and a bugler or trumpeter plays The Last Post to signify that the soldiers have done their duty and can rest now, then there is 2 minutes of silence. The ceremony was established to express gratitude for the men and women who gave their lives for Belgium’s freedom, and to endure that the tens of thousand would never be forgotten

But can you imagine? Every single night since 1928, other than a period of time during WW2 when Hitler put a stop to it, although it was still done, but in a different location.

One of the first buildings you see once you pass though the gate is this building, which I thought was a cathedral, but it tunes out that it’s called The Cloth Hall and was a medieval commercial building and was built between 1200 and 1304. It was mostly destroyed during WW2, but was rebuilt afterwards and now houses the “In Flanders Fields” Museum.

What a place! I couldn’t believe how large it was, and how “user friendly”. Upon entering you get a poppy shaped bracelet with a micro chip in it, and you can scan each individual display to hear about it in your own language. No more squinting and trying to read those tiny display cards. It was extremely impressive, even if you are not a WW1 aficionado. 

After that we headed outside for something a little more cheerful. The market was taking place in the square outside (there has been a market there since the Middle Ages!). I love a good market, and this one had it all. Clothes, fruits, veggies, breads and pastries, food wagons, seafood, meats, you name it, it was there. 

And the fruits and vegetables were so beautiful. It made our North American food supply look so unappealing.

I mean, just look at these colours. I’ve never seen such perfect strawberries.

A strange little car

I thought these were cakes, but they are actually Turkish nougat.

All the seafood stalls just smelled like fresh ocean. No “fishy” smell at all.

A car brand I didn’t recognize. It was an electric car of some sort.

The prices of everything in the market seemed pretty reasonable too.

We walked around the town centre and down some side streets and found a little café where we shared a panini (why does all of the bread over here taste like a fluffy cloud?) and a cappuccino, but I’ve never had one like this before! It was tasty!

The streets are beautiful, and full of good things…like chocolate shops (mmmm, Belgian chocolates…) and little wine cars.

We went in here and bought a fair amount of goodies.

The wine car was beside a bouncy castle, ever so handy for parents who need a break from a rowdy kid. Pretty good idea! 

You can see the Menin Gate in the distance, and it looks like some dark clouds are rolling in. 

After a really great afternoon we had one final stop to make, but oh, I wish I could have stayed here longer. We met our little group back at the Flanders Museum and headed back to our bus, and drove towards Essex Farm Cemetery.

You may not have heard of it before, I know that I never had, but you’ll have heard of who was there. John McCrae, the author of the poem we all know, “In Flanders Fields”

Essex Farm Cemetery is much smaller than Tyne Cot, just under 1200 graves, 104 unidentified. 

The trenches here were a dressing station, where McCrae had his “hospital”. The cobblestones were added later, after the war, the men at the time lived in mud and squalor. 

There are Canadian flags everywhere, placed by Belgian school children as well as by Canadians. 

The trenches look so beautiful and peaceful now.

This grave is the resting place of VA Strudwick, only 15 years old. He was born on Valentine’s Day and his mother named him Valentine Joseph. He ran away from home at 14 years old to join the British Army. He lied, and said he was 18. He was killed shortly after joining, and this is the telegram his mother received.

“ "I am very sorry indeed to have to inform you that your son was killed by a shell on Jan. 14th. His death was quite instantaneous and painless and his body was carried by his comrades to a little cemetery behind the lines, where it was reverently buried this morning. A cross is being made and will shortly be erected on his grave. Rifleman Strudwick had earned the goodwill and respect of his comrades and of his officers, and we are very sorry indeed to lose so good a soldier. On their behalf as well as my own I offer you our sincere sympathy."

His mother never got to see him in his uniform. People still leave teddy bears at his grave, he was really just a child. 

The black clouds are rolling in, and the thunder is rumbling. It seemed fitting.

As soon as we got on the bus to head back to Bruges, the heavens opened and it poured! We were so fortunate that it missed us while we were out. When we got back to the ship, people were drencehd and some excursions had had to be cancelled. I guess someone was looking out for our little group. 

A windmill on a farm. The gray skies make it look like a painting done by one of the masters.