Perry and Robyn's Travel Blog: Europe 2019 : Day 27 South to Amiens

Wednesday 4th September

We arrived at breakfast the next morning in the B&B to discover we were the only ones staying the previous night. The owners had decided, at some point, to start their late-summer break in the country from this day and had not accepted any bookings after ours. We did ask why they didn’t just send us a cancellation and they stated that we had booked so early, and they had accepted, so that was it. Given the location in the middle of the city we were extremely grateful.

Discussions ensued about the previous night and we were then treated to an unusual history of the Menin Gate. The husband came from a long line of stone-masons and it was his grandfather who did a lot of the major work on the gate’s construction after World War I. We got to see a number of old photos of the planning and construction, along with glimpses of the city before the gate was completed. Fascinating stuff.

We had the morning to ourselves in the city. We figured we needed to head off at about noon for Fromelles and then to go on to Amiens where we were booked in for the night.

The Cathedral was open so that was the first stop and Robyn’s great-aunt had written about it for the Advocate back just after the war. It wasn’t bombed by the Germans as the Pope at that time had extracted a promise that it would be spared. So the building was as it had been for some hundreds of years. A rarity in that part of the world.

Ypres Cathedral main altar

Cathedral nave

That wander around the church and the nearby cloth house (at one time the largest privately owned building in the world) brought us up to the opening time of the In Flanders Fields museum located at one end of the building. This gave a great overview of the whole of the first World War, as it was played out in Flanders, but after about an hour we’d had enough. The suffering gets a bit bleak and over-powering after a while and we needed a break.

So, chocolate.

The chocolate counter

Our B&B hosts had recommended a small chocolate shop between their place and the Cathedral and we spend some time there allowing the proprietor to pick a few selections for us: some for people at Robyn’s work and some for us for Christmas. It reminded me yet again that Belgium is such a great place for both beer and chocolate. So much so that I’m amazed Robyn and I haven’t moved there.

The Fromelles area that we wanted to look at consists of two main sites: the museum, and the site of the battle, which is now known as V.C. Corner. We got to the museum at about lunch time so settled down to another meal at the same spot as the day before. We were a bit bemused by the fact that no-one came out to ask us what we thought we were doing, so we finished up and went into the museum.

While there Robyn got into a discussion with the staff about the DNA program they had run about ten years before. She found out that someone was still running it, to some degree, and collected the details for later contact.

Robyn walks towards the memorial wall

W. R. Riordan listed on the memorial wall

V.C. Corner is a few kilometres down the road from Fromelles, where the 1916 battle was fought and where Robyn's great-uncle, William Edgar Riordan, died. The museum had on display a map of the battle lines showing where each battalion was situated, and, of course, William's, the 54th Infantry, was front and centre. He didn't stand a chance. He was listed on the memorial there, as he is in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

This all started to turn a little sad so we headed off to Amiens for the night. The cathedral here is the biggest in France. An amazing structure. There are a number of Australia references in the church which made it even more interesting.