Day 3 – Memorials Around Ypres pt1

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It’s been a poignant day today. We’ve spent the day cycling around the memorial graveyards to the east of Ypres.

The campsite we’re staying at is a two minute cycle ride from the Hooge Crater Museum and Memorial. The Hooge Crater was created early WWI when the allies dug a 60m tunnel under the German positions and let off 1,700kg of explosives, making the crater.

Inside the Hooge Crater Museum
Hooge Crater Memorial Graveyeard 1
Hooge Crater Memorial Graveyeard 2 – A journey cut short on every stone, often with 3 or 4 unknown soldiers buried in each grave
Hooge Crater Memorial Graveyeard 3 – Endless Tombstones

Next we biked into Ypres and had a wander around the town centre.

The central square had a fair parked there and made it difficult to see the huge wool market (now museum).

Ypres Wool Market
Ypres Wool Market rear
Ypres Cathedral behind the wool market

After Ypres we headed back and took a detour to the Sanctuary Wood Memorial.

Sanctuary Wood Memorial
Sanctuary Wood Memorial

Finally for the day, after supper, we got the bikes out again and headed back into Ypres for the sounding of the last post. Unfortunately we were behind the buglers, but the sound was chilling and very moving. The last post is played at 8PM every day.


Ypres sounding the Last Post

Tomorrow we’ll be staying in the same campsite and doing a few more memorial sites.

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