In Flanders Fields

For two days we went to the Belgian coast and Flanders Fields. Bea and Lieven picked us up and we drove to Niewport, which was, in the First World War called Westfront. There was a memorial there for all the Belgians who fought in the war. In the war the Belgian army didn't have enough men to take on the Germans, but they were cunning! They used the canals and coast and flooded Niewport, so the German Army couldn't proceed!

After that we went to Vladslo, there we went to the German military cemetery called Diksmuide. There was a statue there called the Grieving Parents, they were of two parents grieving for their seventeen year old son, Peter Kollwitz, who died in war (October, 1914). The mother, Käthe Kollwitz, sculpted them. That was really touching as you saw the expressions on their faces, wishing their boy hadn't died!

After that we went to the Flemish Memorial, called PAX, it was based around the theme of "No More War".

Then we went to some real life trenches along the IJzer river. There were thousands of kilometres of trenches along that river. But during the war the trenches would have been wet and soggy. After that we had lunch by the river.

After lunch we went to the Tyne Cot cemetery, that was in remembrance of all the Commonwealth soldiers. There were over 10,000 graves, many of the graves had names but many were unknown soldiers. On the memorial wall there 35,000 names of soldiers with no known graves. It is so sad that so many young men and some women died without being identified.

We headed to Ypres and we joined in making sculptures to remember all of the 600,000 victims who lost their lives during the First World War in Belgium. In 2018 the sculptures will be placed in the hard fought No Mans Land of Flanders Fields.

At 8pm we gathered at the Menin Gate, a well known memorial. During the war, to get to the battle fields the soldiers had to walk through the Menin Gate, few returned. Every night at 8pm Belgian volunteers play the Last Post on the bugle in memory of all who fought at war. That was amazing because every night those people are committed to this service.

The next day we went on a walk on the beach and caught a ferry to the old Ostend and we walked around for a while and finally found lunch and after that we went to the promenade and hired a pedal powered go kart, that was really fun! It was really kind of Bea and Lieven to let us stay in their families apartment.