The Chateau to Bruges – including Villers Bretonneux

It is our last morning at our beautiful Normandy Chateau and again it is a beautiful day. The week has been nowhere near as rainy as our tour guide had suggested it may be. We really enjoyed our week here as it was so quiet and the air was so fresh – and we got to play bridge in France!

The bus was leaving at 8.45 am which means a 9.00 am departure as there is always someone a bit late in such a big group.

Our hosts had hired a car that needed to be returned to Bayeau so we headed there to collect the car driver after he returned the car, so we could set off to Villers Bretonneux.

By chance this took much longer than expected. It took ages to find the car drop off point. Then as we headed towards Rouen, the roadworks we had been told about earlier in the week, that caused us to change the itinerary, were still causing massive delays. This was another hour delay sitting in bumper to bumper traffic. No different to our own M1 on a bad day really!

We finally got to an ESSO service centre for a break about 1 pm. We had time for a quick lunch and to get some supplies as we now realised we won’t get to Bruges until very late.

There is a chain of Patisseries here called Paul, and that’s what we found at the service centre. We hadn’t had a chance to try their food in Paris so this was a good opportunity. We each had a delicious bagette and a drink. There was a salad called salade Paul . It looked like a Caesar salad and was very popular.

 

We returned to the bus for more driving though the beautiful French countryside. Hundreds of wheat and corn paddocks and numerous wind farms interspersed with lush green areas.

We finally got to Villers Bretonneux about 3 pm. It was well worth the visit .Some money spent well by the Australian government. The only issue is the really poor signage, as we have found everywhere in France. It would have been very easy to miss the new Australian museum called the Sir John Monash Centre as it is down a ramp at the back of the memorial. There is a sign on the opposite side to the car park, but on the side most people will walk to there is no clear sign.

We  are so lucky to be here on the 100^th anniversary of this tragic event.

 

As you walk down the ramp to the new museum there are bricks with Aussie words like cobber etc displayed. There are also speakers in the wall with battle sounds as you approach the entrance.

We had to purchase our ear pieces for 3 euro from the coffee shop, then show ID so the museum would lend us a device to hear the commentary on the displays. Not quite sure of the politics of this, but it all worked out.

We had about an hour to explore. The movies and commentaries were excellent. So many young lives lost. It was very moving!

The field of headstones was amazing and the memorial building has so many name listed from all the different battalions. Again I was surprised to see a town that has lived this gratitude and memory for 100 years. There are rows of flags representing the allies on many local buildings, and the local government building has the French flag flying in the centre, a boxing kangaroo on either side of the French flag, then Australian flags at each side of the building. Australia is certainly held dearly here from WWI. Just like the appreciation and respect from WWII we saw in Normandy.

Then it was to board the bus for the final leg of the journey to Bruges.

Once we crossed the border into Belgium we noticed the same kind of farming (wheat and wind farms), but interspersed with more fields of cabbages and other low growing crops.

Once in Bruges we were amazed again by the driving skills of Sam, our driver. The streets were so narrow we were surprised he got us so close to our hotel in such a large coach.

We are staying at the Peellaert Hotel in the centre of Bruges. More about this in the next post.

 

Check in was very quick – just had to show our passports. Then we dropped our luggage in our  room and headed out for a beer and dinner. There are lots of bars and eateries within a block of the hotel so we had a good choice.

 

We went to Restaurant Diligence and had a few beers, a scotch fillet (cooked well, but not good quality steak) then stumbled back to bed, as we hadn’t realised the beers we drank were 9% alc.