Touring the Somme

Sunday 27^th April

Having been caught out before with nothing being open on a Sunday we decided we needed to head off early and get to Amiens before lunch and hope that the tourist info centre was open. It started out another wet day with rain for most of the drive. Again the weather started to clear as we neared our destination. Plan achieved – we arrived in Amiens at 11.30 and as Dora led us to the info centre we kept coming up against road closed signs – the whole of the centre of Amiens was closed off for one of their twice a year flea markets. Well, I set Dora the task of finding another way, and she did! In the info centre we picked up maps and info on sights to see regarding the fighting in the Somme in WWI.

The cathedral in Amiens.

The Australian Bar - in Amiens.
We didn't go inside to see if they had meat pies and tomato sauce.

We first visited the Australian Memorial at Villers Bretonneux. Neither of us realised that the actual battle at Villers Bretonneux took place between 24^th and 26^th April in 1916. Today marked the end of a week of activities in the area regarding the battle at VB. At the memorial there had obviously been a huge dawn service on Anzac Day (from the number of porta loos waiting to be picked up). There were a lot of wreaths, flags and poppies and also remembrance cards from students at schools in Australia. Pretty sobering to see the lines of headstones and realise that they were only a very small portion of those who lost their lives in this war.

 

The Australian National Memorial at Villers Bretonneux.

Looking back from the top of the tower.

From there we visited other sites in the Somme – at Pozieres, the tank memorial and the memorial to the AIF 1^st  division, at Thiepval the memorial to the 72000 unidentified British soldiers, and the Lochnagar Crater where a huge bomb was buried under the german lines and blew a crater 300ft across and 70ft deep. Across this whole area were cemeteries for the soldiers who were killed in the Somme.

 

Rob had mentioned that they were still finding unexploded
ordnance and there it was - next to one of the memorials
and I guess waiting for the 'bomb squad'.

Sailly-le-Sec
- memorial to the 3rd Australian Division.

Crater left by the bomb at La Boisselle.

Memorial to the 1st Australian Division "Gibraltar"

The Tank Memorial

The Franco British Memorial
- to the 72000 unidentified soldiers.
The largest British war memorial in the world.

Tonight we are trying a different hotel chain - the Quick Palace. No, not the quickie palace and the room isn’t sold by the hour! So far the hotel is scoring well on the scorecard.