Sunday 27th 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 24th and 26th 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.
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 1st 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.
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