Monday Sept 20th

Hi everyone, We are in Ypres, Belgium tonight. It is an old city at least it looks old but it was actually almost completely destroyed and rebuilt after WW1. Churchill actually wanted it left destroyed as a reminder of what the war did to the city. However the locals where determined to rebuild and did the downtown buildings exactly as they were before the war. We went to the Last Post Ceremony at the Menin Gate tonight at 8pm. It was very moving, there were veterans, a marching band and a group of school kids from South Africa who sang their anthem. There were also several people who laid wreaths to honor the 55,000 names of soldiers with unknown graves that are printed on the walls. This morning we went first to the Flanders Fields museum which is located it the Cloth Hall in downtown Ypres. This is one of the buildings which was completely rebuilt. It used to be a textile plant thus the name cloth hall. Next was Essex Farm cemetery where John MacRae was a doctor at a front line dressing center and from here he wrote In Flanders Fields after a good friend of his was blown up by a bomb, They helped the wounded from an earth covered bunker which protected them from incoming shells. They would dress the wounded as best they could then send them back further for more complete treatment. Next we went to Passchendale site of the tragic battle in 1917. I was expecting quite hilly land but the ridge is actually quite a gentle slope. Beautiful farms in the area with all kinds of crops, potatoes, brussel sprouts, cabbage, corn etc as well as dairy and beef farms. Next stop was Tyne Cot Cemetery, the largest Commonwealth Cemetery in th world with 12,000 graves and 35,000 missing, almost 1,000 are Canadian. This place is truly amazing, the flowers and the marble are very impressive. Each row of gravestones has a different colour of roses right down the line. I will add pictures of the cemetery tomorrow. We then stopped at Hill 62 where there is a Canadian Memorial for all the soldiers killed there. We had a great supper at our hotel the Ariane, Chicken Soup, Roast Beef with potato croquets, and a chocolate mousse desert with coffee. Best meal we've had yet on  the trip. Tomorrow we check out La Coupole which is a gigantic underground bunker the Nazi's V2 rockets were prepared and stored for a launch to destroy London. We then cross the Channel on a ferry and arrive in London late in the day. I only have one half hour of Inet tonight as I had to pay 3 euros for it. So no pictures until tomorrow.