Ieper / Ypres / "Wipers" - This is gonna be a long post...

Yesterday we travelled to Ieper, home of 'Flanders Fields'. Ieper is its Dutch name, Ypres is its English name, and "Wipers" was the name given to the city by Allied soldiers due its obliteration by artillery fire in WWI. It's now a small city near the border with France, and had to be totally rebuilt after the war because it was completely destroyed. The Western Front extended from the Belgian coast right the way down through France to Switzerland, and there were unimaginiable casualties the whole way along it. On the train to Ieper alone we saw so many memorials dotted throughout the countryside.

This is what was left of the Ieper at the end of WWI (it was damaged again in WWII also). Those sticky-uppy bits in the centre are the remnants of the Medieval Cloth Hall / City Hall / Belfry Tower which used to be one big massive complex. It was rebuilt the same.

This is what it looks like today, after being rebuilt. It's fairytale beautiful.

View from a different angle. Shows the Grote Markt / Central Square of Ieper.

There were many things we wanted to see in Ieper. Firstly, to visit the NZ memorials (which, unlike other countries, NZ soldiers were buried at the sites where they fell rather than all together), the Flanders Fields museum which is in the Cloth Hall, and also to see the Menin Gate with its nightly Last Post ceremony. We took our faithfull steeds Isobel and Poor Sod on 4 different trains to get there and back, as we had decided to see the memorials by bike. We bought a map for the 'Peace Route' (Vredesroute in Dutch) which is a 45km loop from Ieper to Zonnebeke, Passchendaele, Langemark and back again.


Zonnebeke is the site of 2 NZ cemetaries (along with other Commonwealth soldiers); Polygon Wood and Buttes New British Cemetary. At Passchendaele is the largest Commonwealth cemetary in the world; Tyne Cot (almost 12,000 graves). Also, there is a NZ memorial there ('s Graventafel). So those are the 4 that we set out to see. Also at Langemark is the German memorial and cemetary, but we didn't have time to visit it. Unfortunately we didn't make it to the memorial at Messines to the south of Ieper either, where there is a memorial to the missing.

The Vredesroute was amazing. It consisted mostly of special bike paths through the country-side, with occasional stints along roads. It is one of the most beautiful things I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing.

The country side was so lovely, its all farms now (crops and beef). You'd never know what had happened there almost a hundred years ago now.

I loved the wheat fields

Hamish reports that he has never known a cow to sit like that. It was so strange, a cow just chillin' out, sitting there on hind legs instead of lying down.


Our first stop was at a place known as Hill 60 (photo above). This was the site of the most sustained and savage battles along the Ypres Salient. It is an artificially created hill that was heavily fought over for about 4 years. There is terrible history here, as during this time massive explosives and poisonous gases were introduced as techniques of warfare.

The forest behind these houses is part of an area known as Hill 62 - used as a haven on the edge of the Salient where soliders were sent to rest and recuperate. However, it wasn't used for long as the German line advanced right up to it, and a massive battle took place which resulted in huge Canadian casualties. Hence the road at the back is now called Maple Avenue and is lined with Maple trees in memorium.

This is Buttes New British Cemetary. The Obelisk that you can see in the centre through the trees is for the 5th Australian Division who stormed these woods in 1917. There is also a Greek temple which commemorates the dead of the NZ Division.

The beautiful thing about this particular place was that it was planted in NZ ferns.

Hamish at the NZ Division memorial

We then moved across the road to Polygon Wood cemetary.

You can see the road between where this photo was taken (Buttes) and Polygon Wood. Polygon Wood has 5 walls (hence polygon) and contains about 100 graves. They are not laid out in the usual cemetary rows as they were hastily dug and filled under fire. The way these cemetaries and memorials look now is certainly very different from the photos in leaflets we have of what they looked like during the war. I'm going to post them home if anyone is interested in having a look at some of the info we got.

We then biked on to Tyne Cot cemetary, near Passchendaele. It is completely overwhelming. Almost 12,000 graves, plus a massive memorial to the missing containing the names of 35,000 soldiers who were never found. There is a little museum centre which has information on the battles that took place there. It has a video which plays, with photos of soldiers who rest there being shown while their name and age is read out. There are speakers outside too. One of the most sobering experiences ever.

The NZ names in their own little enclave

We then moved on to the NZ Memorial called 's Graventafel. Someone had put stickers saying 'Aotearoa' and a NZ flag on the roadsign (Passendale = Dutch name for Passchendaele). This monument marks the site captured by the NZ Division on the 4th October 1917 as part of the advance of the Allies towards Passchendaele (Battle of Broodseinde).

Our next stop was Essex Farm cemetary, which is also the site where Canadian medic John McRae wrote the famous poem 'In Flanders Fields'.


He was posted here at this dressing station (a massive bunker with tiny dark rooms they used as a medical fix-it point).

This is what it used to look like.

We then headed back to Ieper which concluded the Peace Route. Our next mission after that was the Menin gate, which is at the eastern entrance of the city. The central city is still surrounded by ramparts (although they were rebuilt after the wall), so the Menin Gate is one of the entrance points to the city. Cars drive through it, but it is closed off each night for the Last Post ceremony.

This is the Menin Gate (from the city side). I'm the little ant standing at the right-hand pillar. As you can see its pretty massive - the largest Commonwealth war memorial in the world.

The Menin Gate from the other side - see the Cloth Hall through the gap! I had to wait for a gap with no cars and stand in the middle of the road to get this shot hehe.

The Last Post ceremony begins at 8pm every evening, as has done so every single night since 1928. It always occurs inside the Menin Gate, except for one night during WWII when the place was being bombed so they had to relocate to another spot, but they still played. The ceremony is run by the Last Post Association, who organise a team of buglers and also bands to officiate the procedings. Hamish and I were there on day 27,461 of the ceremony. That's so impressive.

The Last Post was haunting, especially with the acoustics of the Gate and just being in that place. The Buglers played their introduction and the Brass Band played a hymm, then the Last Post was played before the wreath-laying ceremony. Lastly the Reveille was played, followed by the bagpipe solo. Each end of the Gate was closed off from traffic by military (on this night there was an Irish contingent). I tried to post a video but it doesn't seem to want to work, I'll have to show ya'll when I get back to NZ. Sorry. You can check out the Last Post Association website, it has audio there; http://www.lastpost.be/

After the ceremony, we had a good look around the Menin Gate and also the Ramparts, before catching the very last train home. It was a loooong but very special day for both of us.

Mish on the moat at the top of the Menin Gate

Investigating the city ramparts by bike

Another entrance to the city

I will put all the photos up on my Flickr site (there are a lot) at the end of the month when my upload limit renews - link to the right at the top of this page :) xxx R

Antwerp

Yesterday was a beeeeeeeeeeaauutiful day, perfect for seeing Antwerp. It's a city well-known for fashion, diamonds, and the port canal. Apparently 80% of the world's diamonds pass through Antwerp, where they are cut. Hence, the streets are lined with shops selling all kinds of diamond jewellery.

Its a 45 min train ride across country, interesting for me as I've never been out that way before.

Why oh why would anyone call a city 'Antwerp', I hear you ask? Well, according to folklore, the city got its name from the legend of Antigoon. He was a giant who lived near the river Scheldt (runs through Belgium and the Netherlands) and made everyone who crossed the river pay a toll. If anyone refused to pay, he cut off one of their hands and threw it into the river. Apparently he was eventually killed by a young hero called Brabo, who cut off the giant's hand and threw it into the river. So the Dutch name for Antwerp (Antwerpen), is a mix of the name 'Antigoon' and the Dutch word for hand - werpen.

This is a statue of Brabo flinging the Giant's hand into the Scheldt river (in the Grote Markt) or Big Square in the city centre (sorry, you may have to use your imagination 'cause I forgot to take a close-up of the hand...)

Luckily I did get a shot of this one though...

Anyways, first call of the day was the oldest bakery in town (122 years), to get Hamish some raisin bread. Best bakery EVER. Taaasty bread pudding!!!

Waiting in line to order his bread. It's the store's specialty - brown bread with raisins ('roggeverdommeke'). You can see the loaves on the shelves to the right. The loaf weighed a ton and was very dense - almost like a giant (and very delicious) scone.

I consider myself privileged to have been able to sample the loaf. Mish is nuts about raisins in any kind of baked good, but especially bread.

So after a bit of a break to enable digestion, we got around to the sight-seeing. We went to visit Rubenshuis (the house and workshop of the famous Flemish painter known as Rubens).

This is a photo of one of the courtyards at his house. Basically, he became a really rich dude in the 1600's in Antwerp because he had a crowd of talented artists who helped him finish his works, and he was a clever businessman/architect/painter himself. He had a neat Flemish-style house on one side of this courtyard, connected to an Italian-style painting workshop on the other side. There were a lot of famous Flemish art works created from the 1500 - 1800's, and most of the artists learnt their craft in Italy alongside the likes of Michelangelo and da Vinci. Rubens is somewhat of an icon in Antwerp, and apparently was a bit of a character. When his first wife died of the plague he was deeply saddened, so at 46 he married a 16 year old girl to replace her.

Here's Rubens with the Onze-Lieve-Vrouw Kathedraal (Cathedral of Our Lady).

Another neat thing about Antwerp is the pedestrian tunnel which goes underground from one side of the city to the other, underneath the canal!!

Some stats

Long straight tunnel, interspersed with pedestrians and crazy mental cyclists.

We even found a NZ flag in the Grote Markt, with a whole array of flags on the City Hall building across the square, it seemed to be on its own... weird!

Antwerp has a really different atmosphere to the other Flemish cities I've seen so far, I guess because its a bit more open-spaced and glamourous (some CRAZY fashion goin on in that place).

This was a shopping centre. Just a plain old, gold-detailed shopping centre.... And that UFO thing is a champagne terrace. For drinking champagne. Fancy!!

We're going to Ypres tomorrow. The 'Flanders Fields'. We're taking our bikes on the train so we can visit all the different NZ memorials.

P.S

Today (21st July) is Belgium's National Day!

There are still people wandering the streets with nooses on...

Gentse Feesten

The Gent Festival started on saturday, kicking off with a parade through the city centre. The streets are PACKED as there are around 2 million extra people here at the moment!!

During the parade, these guys in white shirts were selling nooses. That's amusing even if you don't know what it means. I think I posted a while back about the nooses and what they mean for the people of Gent, but here's a recap; Charles V who became a Roman Emperor and was also the King of Spain, was born in Gent. He punished the citizens of Gent in 1539 after they revolted against him, making the city's nobles to walk in front of him barefoot with nooses around their necks. Since this incident, the people of Gent have been called "Stroppendragers" (noose bearers). They still wear the nooses in official parades and events today.


I'm not sure if this has cultural significance here but thought it was an interesting role-reversal!!

Check out this awesome 360º view of Graslei from the bridge; http://www.visitonweb.com/wikipedia/gent-graslei-uk.html and then imagine it packed out with lights and music stages, and FULL of people!!

Something like this....

Then on sunday evening there was a fireworks display on the Watersportslaan (a long water sports lane used for rowing etc). It was really neat as there was great music played with the fireworks, and it was a choreographed show including cherry pickers and really interesting fireworks. There were some really interesting firework techniques used that I'd never come across before - ones that stayed lit up in the sky for ages and looked like fireflies, others that looked like a disturbed nest of bugs, and big exploding ones that were like a pie chart of different colours. It was really neat.

Just 2 weeks

Two weeks today until we leave Belgium :( I'm actually really not looking forward to leaving Gent - I like it here! But also super excited about moving on to the UK.

Which reminds me - in case anyone was thinking about posting anything over here, it probably won't reach us in time before we leave. I'll email the address for Kinloch Lodge once we get there.

In other news, I have become irreversibly addicted to all things Speculaas. Not only do Belgians serve those spicy Speculaas cookies with every hot drink under the sun, but they also have;

* Speculaas paste (spreadable, like peanut butter, its GOOD)
* Speculaas gelato and icecream
* Speculaas milky bar chocolate!!
* Speculaas flavoured coffee

Speculaas is the word they use in Dutch, Speculoos is the French word. Just in case you were wondering about my spelling!

We're goin to Scotland!!

This is Hamish the Highland Coo. I think 'Coo' is just how the Scots pronounce 'Cow', *giggles*. We're going all the way to Scotland to see him. By the way, the photo is off the website of the tour we're doing as this hairy beast may be wild but is neither of our ideas of sexy. The company that does the tours is called Haggis Adventures (thanks to Amy for mentioning it or we'd never have thought of it) how kool is that?! They sound REALLY fun and we can't wait to get started!

We had a spare week to spend in the UK before starting work on the Isle of Skye and upon discovering the costs of seeing things ourselves, it worked out almost as cheap (and much more informative and fun) to do a wee tour. So we'll be seeing Edinburgh, heading up to the Orkney Islands, the Isle of Harris, a quick look at the Isle of Skye, Loch Ness and the William Wallace monument. Plus, the day before we start off from Edinburgh we will be going to see the Edinburgh Military Tattoo!! Super excited about that!

Mostly I am just intrigued with the idea of meeting this Hamish character. In fact, I have been chuckling about 'Hamish' meeting Hamish for so long now, that the real Hamish is threatening to gore me. Just look at him! How can he even see??