In Flanders Field Museum
Trip Start
Sep 22, 2009
1
8
9
Trip End
Sep 30, 2009
Ypres, West Flanders, Belgium
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
The museum was not big at all, but it was interactive which made it interesting. They had the famous Canadian poem "In Flanders Fields" projecting on the wall. We think it was a copy of the original hand-written poem. They had it translated in various languages. We found out the story behind the poem while there as well, since like myself, i only knew bits and pieces of it. The story goes that in the second week of fighting during the Second
Battle of Ypres a Canadian artillery officer, Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, was killed
on 2 May, 1915 by a German artillery shell. He was a friend of the Canadian military
doctor Major John McCrae. John was asked to conduct the burial service owing to the chaplain being called away on duty elsewhere.
It is believed that later that evening John began the draft for his famous poem 'In Flanders Fields'.
The small town of Ieper is very quaint. We had a few hours to kill so we walked around the square and even went to pick up some wine at the local supermarket. I had forgotten how cheap wine/beer is in this country. I found some Australian wines (wolfblass) which normally costs an arm and a leg back home so I never buy it but here it was all under $7 a bottle!! I so wish we didn't have limits on the amount of liquor we could bring back because I think I would have gone to town to bring back a suitcase full at these prices.
On our way back to Herentals, we realized that doing 140km/hr doens't seem to be fast enough for some people because we still had some drivers tailgating us regardless.
We're on the last stretch of our trip unfortunately. We leave tomorrow for Canada :(
We might head into Amsterdam for dinner later today, we're a bit exhausted from not sleeping well the night before and rising early to drive in to drop off the car in Antwerp then catch a train to Brussels to pick up the keys to our apartment. Which btw is better than the last one we were in!! It's a bit bigger and has a big balcony overlooking the city. I've taken some photos and will include them in the next travel blog update (either later tonight or tomorrow after we arrive in Canada).
