24 April 2024 – War Graves & Gravelines

Miles driven today = 91

Total Miles to date = 4,925

Today has been a rather somber end to our time on the Continent.  I’ve always felt a strange compulsion to visit one of the huge cemeteries filled with the remains of the fallen who lost their young lives for the sake of satisfying the egos of those in power.  Lisa finds it all very morbid but I think we all sometimes need reminding of the futility of it all.  It’s still happening today and I guess it always will.  

My Grandfather fought in the Great War.  I was only 8 when he died so I never really got to know much about his experiences or even where he fought.  All we have as a memento of that time is a pair of German Officer’s field glasses which he managed to bring back home with him at the end of the War.  I don’t even know whether the original owner was still alive when he got hold of them.  I like to think he was.

We passed a number of cemeteries as we drove through the Somme region en-route to Spain and Portugal in 2022 but they were all tiny in comparison to the scale of what we saw today.  Tyne Cot is the largest Commonwealth War Cemetery in the World.  It’s close to the village of Passendale where some of the most intensive trench fighting of the Great War took place.

There are nearly 12,000 people buried here, of which more than 8,300 are unnamed and purely labelled as “A soldier of the Great War”

As well as British graves we also spotted those of soldiers from Australia, New Zealand and Canada, who travelled across the Globe to be slaughtered in a muddy Belgian field.

Around one side of the Cemetery is a huge curved wall which bears the names of more than 33,000 members of the British forces who were listed as missing, presumed dead on the Western Front.  

In an alcove are the names of a further 1,176 New Zealanders.

From Ypres we picked up the bone-rattling N8 to Verne where we turned left, taking us back over the final border into France.  Lisa popped into Aldi’s near Dunkirk for a last minute spot of wine shopping before we moved on to a motorhome parking area overlooking a marina at Gravelines, which is half way between Dunkirk and Calais and only 20 minutes’ drive from the Le Shuttle terminal. 

It's been another grey, cold and windy day with a few squally hailstorms to dodge, so we didn’t spend a great deal of time out and about once we got here.  But I did manage a quick dash round Gravelines to see its few highlights.  The town was originally built by the Spanish in the 12th Century as a star shaped moated fortress to protect the Seaward entrance to the Canal which leads inland to St Omer.

The Arsenal is effectively a fort inside a fort.  It contains a museum and art gallery nowadays.

The Town Square.

The Belfry and the Town Hall.

Looking down from the top of the wall I spotted what appears to be a topiaried coat of arms but I’m unsure what it represents.

And that basically brings this tour to a close.  We are booked on the 9:50 train in the morning so alarms will be set for a little earlier than we tend to rise as a norm.  This afternoon has been rather reminiscent of the day we spent kicking our heels and hanging around in the cold in Calais at the end of our last tour when all we really want to do now is to get home.  This time tomorrow that's where we will be.

25 April 2024 - And Safely Home