Amiens, World War I Trenches, Blankenberge

We walked over to Amiens Cathedral from our hotel.

To get there, we had to walk across this river.

Once we were in, we realized that we had come in through the "back" entrance.

This is the front. Amiens Cathedral was built in 1280, which makes its flying buttresses, stained glass, and use of light even more impressive.

It's height is so awe inspiring that the Wild Winters became the Whispering Winters for a short, blessed time.

Some art in a side chapel

An ancient baptismal?

Then, it was chocolate croissants, orange juice, and espresso.

Next, we went to a memorial for the Newfoundland Regiment, which was decimated in the First World War. The architects who built war memorials usually decided to level the ground and build something large and imposing, but the one in charge of the Newfoundland Memorial decided to leave the trenches intact for future generations and just add a large sculpture of a moose.  I really appreciated that the trenches were still there. 

You can actually go into some of the trenches, and they have friendly Canadian guides everywhere to explain things and politely keep you on the paths. There is unexploded ordinance in the fields still, so you really have to stay on the paths.

The trenches zigzag so that if they were overrun by the enemy, the enemy didn't have a straight shot at all of the men in the trench at once. In five months of 1916, 1.2 million men were killed in trenches like these. We could still see metal stakes in the ground for holding up barbed wire near No Man's Land.

This particular regiment had already survived Gallipoli, but lost 86% of their remaining men here in France.

I have read a lot about this particular war and it intrigues and appalls me. So much waste and futility in trench warfare. Every town we passed had a memorial, museum, or plaque about casualties of World War I. The whole area is just a long, deep battlefield covered over with crops and rebuilt villages.

I could go on and on about the generals, who sent their men over the tops of trenches like these and were absolutely unable to see the new realities of war, but I will hold back.

This is the memorial for an Ulster regiment from the same war. We had coffee in their snack area, and it was odd to hear thick Irish brogues in France at a memorial for casualties of a war almost exactly a hundred years old. So many things all mixed up together!

This is near our hotel in Blankenberge, where we are staying while we tour Bruges tomorrow.