ANZAC Day in France

Tags

ANZAC, Australian, Bullecourt, Diggers, Fromelles, Somme, Villers-Bretonneaux, WW1

Our current residence near Le Mans is only about 350km from Villers-Bretonneaux in the Somme. Villers-Bretonneaux was obliterated by the Germans in WW1 and captured by Australian troops a few days later with a loss of over 1200 Australian lives. It was a significant battle in that it was the first battle between tanks. Coincidentally the battle of Villers-Bretonneaux also occurred on April 25th – ANZAC Day.

The Australian government holds an official ANZAC Day commemoration at the Australian National Memorial just out of Villers-Bretonneaux each year. So seeing I was so close I decided I should do what all Australians should do in their lifetime and that is, to pay our respects at an ANZAC service on the soil where so many Australians gave their life for their country.

So at 4:00am on a bleak and cold ANZAC morning, I was heading out on a coach towards the Australian National Memorial. There were about another 5000 aussies doing the same. We have gone months without meeting any Australians, but here, they were in their thousands. It was cold and windy, but the rain was being kept at bay. The Australian National Memorial, sits on top of a small hill overlooking a vast open space. We could see it for miles, all lit up and looking absolutely radiant and omnipresent over the landscape.

Australian war graves at the Australian National Memorial. Only half of the 1200 hundred killed in the battle of Villers-Bretonneaux are buried here. The remains of the other half were never found.

The Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneaux (before the dawn service).

The ANZAC service at the break of dawn.

The Last Post

Dawn has broken.

A minute's silence.

End of the service.

I decided that after the service at Villers-Bretonneaux, I would drive around the battlefields of the Somme and discover Australia’s contribution to the region. The area has many monuments dedicated to French and Commonwealth forces, but the majority seem to be dedicated to the Australian Imperial Force. Maybe I didn’t look hard enough for other nationalities, but you cannot escape the Australian presence, even when your not looking for it.

After spending the last 4 months further south, one thing I noticed, and it was quite stark, was the almost complete absence of old (really old) buildings. Almost every building in every village was constructed of brick and had a 20th century style. There were no 400-1000 year old quaint stone cottages, like other parts of France. Entire villages were wiped off the face of the Earth in WW1 (and WW2). They were not the French villages we had become accustomed to. The Somme was about as far south as the Germans advanced in WW1.

Le Hamel

The Battle of Le Hamel Was another significant battle involving Australian services. Over 1000 Australians were killed in this battle.  Other nationalities were involved, mainly American forces, but they were under the command of Australian forces, the first time ever and it was also America’s first offensive action in WW1. The memorial at Le Hamel is dedicated to the Australian troops and other nationalities.

Le Hamel

An Australian war cemetery.

Pozières

The Battle of Pozieres accounted for over 5000 Australian lives, more than were lost at Gallipoli. The Australian First Division Memorial commemorates their sacrifice.

Australian First Division, Poizieres

Bullecourt

The Battle of Bullecourt is entrenched in ANZAC history. Despite initially forcing the Germans to retreat, the Australian services suffered heavy losses and eventually had to retreat themselves. Later, allied and Australian forces recaptured Bullecourt.

Ville de Bullecourt ANZAC memorial.

Digger's Corner ANZAC service.

Digger's Corner

Digger's Corner

Many towns in the region have named their streets after Australian place names.

and pubs too.

A commonwealth cemetery outside Fromelles.

Fromelles

Fromelles is much further north then the Somme, but battles were fought here to prevent supplies getting to the Germans on the front line further south in the Somme. The Battle of Fromelles was a disastrous battle, with little to gain.  The Australian line and the German lines were only a a couple of hundred of metres apart, but in that area, over 5500 Australians were killed in one night. More than the total number of Australians killed in the Boer War, Korean War and Vietnam War.

As thousands lay dying in that 200 metres, the Australian diggers would race into the area, picking up the wounded and carry them back on their shoulders amid horrendous machine gun fire.

Fromelles VC Corner

"Don't forget me"

Australian Memorial - Fromelles

The local French people seem to embrace ANZAC Day in this region. Many of them turned out to the ceremonies I went to. Indeed, the ceremony at Bullecourt probably had a 50/50 mix based on the number of French accents around. All towns were flying Australian flags, as all towns in the Somme share a connection with the Australian Imperial Force.

It was bitterly cold this morning, it was windy and the rain was continuous. I walked past a recently ploughed paddock which was just thick, heavy, sticky mud. I started to think what it would have been like here in 1916-18, in the middle of winter when the temperature was another 20^OC colder, mud churned by thousands of feet, horses, carts and tanks. Relentless rain. Darkness. No mod cons, just you and your soggy wet clothes and biscuits. It would have been hell. Then I thought, on top of all this, someone was trying to kill them and many they did. It would have been worse than hell.

Lest we forget.

Springtime – moving north

Tags

France, fromage, massif central, Pays de la Loire, roquefort, saint georges sur erve

Tuesday morning, up very early, much earlier than we have been used to… not sure if this is a healthy thing or not. We’ve spent the past 2 days or more packing up our accumulated belongings and cleaning our little cottage ready to move up to our next cottage, much further north in France.

This process made us realise just how much “stuff” we have accumulated in only 3 months, quite surprising really. Rod kept assuring me that everything would fit in the car despite my doubts, but he only just proved himself right there. Our poor little silver beast was completely weighed down, to the point we almost couldn’t see out of the rear-vision mirror. But that’s ok, we had two more mirrors. So off we set.

Loaded up and ready to go.

It was an unusually overcast day, something we weren’t used to at all from our days in the Languedoc Roussillon region, and as we drove, the more grey and drizzly it became. Never mind, we do know spring (and summer) are on their way eventually. After leaving our area and heading north, we soon discovered there is a big difference between the relatively flat coastal plain and the mountains and cliffs of the “massif central” region.  This part of France is made up of many ancient volacanoes, and the shallow valleys and plateaus in between, some of which were formed by various mountains and hillsides collapsing in the valleys below. We decided to visit one such area, which is the origin of the famous Roquefort cheeses. Detouring from the motorway, we headed into the hills & found the town that sits above the famous caves where the cheese is made and went into one cheese cave for a tour.

Roquefort-sur-Soulzon

Caves du fromage

Miam!

I had read (on Tripadvisor) a review from a british resident who said the cheese tour was rushed, was not in English, and was really only for the lovers of very smelly cheeses. That poor guy was clearly delusional, because our tour (completely conducted in French) was quite interesting, informative, not rushed (considering there were only four of us in that particular group) and the smells through the caves along the way were quite delicious. I was holding up the rear of the group as we rounded one set of stairs, opened a door and headed down more stairs into the “classic” cave… and as I uttered a deep appreciative “Mmmmmmm…” at the bouquet, our tour guide laughed from all the way up the front and said “Yes, smell the difference!!” Now I know she was speaking entirely in French, but somehow I instinctively understood exactly what she said. Some things are very easy to interpret!  We stocked up on a variety of cheeses and then it was back to the motorway to continue our journey north.

As you can imagine, driving through a mountainous region we had to go up and down a lot of hills and while they didn’t seem overly imposing at the time, they were actually bigger than the biggest mountain in WA so at times our poor little silver beast struggled with the new & unexpected. However, she pulled through and we made it to our overnight stop in Clermont Ferand. This was literally just an overnight stop to break the journey and in the morning we were on our way again. The next stage saw us leaving the higher ground and dropping to a much more level landscape, but the grey drizzle continued for the rest of the morning.

It was obviously much greener the further north we travelled, but we were quite happy to see that the trees were still in bloom and leaves were springing out everywhere on the trees so  it definitely won’t be long before we feel some warmer weather. That was one thing that we had noticed during our last week in the St Chinian area – the trees all began to transform themselves from bleak bare stick figures into fine delicate patterns of the palest green lace. It was almost as if they had a secret cue and had been holding themselves back until just that week. It was lovely.

Wednesday had us comfortably cruising along through gentle rolling hills and flat lands until we arrived at our quaint new cottage, which is actually part of a small farm holding in a very rural setting. There are three buildings on our site, well actually four if you count the old stone barns that are screaming out for a renovator to come along & turn them into another gorgeous dwelling. But until that happens, we have our little cottage (or “gite” in French  – pronounced “jheet”), which is actually attached to “the big house”, and the “little house” which us slightly uphill & off to the side of our building. Our landlords, Jim & Amy, currently live in the little house as they have rented the big house out to an English couple (arriving at the end of the month) and the gite to us J.

We also share the grounds with Amy & Jim’s various pets: two horses, three cats, three ducks and a selection of chooks. Oh and not forgetting the magnificent looking rooster who, thankfully, does not wake us up at the crack of dawn. I don’t know quite what they’ve done there, but we hear him wandering around the yard crowing all day long (well, mostly around midday) so whatever it is, they have obviously trained him well. There’s also a beehive in the tree up the back, but we haven’t tried to befriend them.

Our give for the next 5 months. Well the stone section on the right.

We did try to befriend the horses, well I did (Paige) but not very successfully really. The problem was that I had been warned about the electric fence – which was just to stop them pushing their way through the tape-fences and eventually escaping. The only part that is actually electrified is the top tape, which (being a bit short) happens to be at my shoulder height. Well the first time I went up to see the horses, they quickly came over to say hello and to investigate whether I brought any goodies for them. Unfortunately, as I was patting one, I forgot about the electric tape and my arm brushed against it, giving all three of us an unexpected shock! Well my arm tingled for a while, but it didn’t last as long as the suspicion that the poor horses regarded me with for the rest of the day. I tried visiting them about an hour later, but the poor things stopped in their tracks and stared at me, obviously remembering that I was the bringer of back vibes. Perhaps by the time I return from Australia in five weeks they will have forgotten. How long is a horse’s memory?

Sain-Georges-sur-Erve. Our nearby town.

The area we are situated in is a beef farming area  with many small villages and hamlets, along with a few larger towns within easy reach.  I actually had the pleasure of tasting some of this beef in a wonderful restaurant we found in Evron, one of the larger towns about 10km from us. We shared our last lunch together before my detour back to Oz, and it was so good that we will definitely return for de journer and diner there. And we will bring our visitors (Chris, Murray, Mum, Dad, you are all in for a treat!).

So, after three days of settling in and the beginnings of our exploration of the environs, I set off for my Australian “holiday” to meet our new grandson Logan, while Rod dropped me off at Charles de Gaule then headed back to map out all the best cycling routes for us. I also look forward to his next entry, all about cycling amongst the cows!

Au revoir, a bientot, Paige.

Temps de croisière

Tags

Barcelona, canary islands, cruise, jade, norwegian cruise lines

Cruise time! Our fellow aussie Saint Chinian residents, Wayne and Sue recommended that we should go on a cruise while down in these parts. They had done an NCL (Norwegian Cruise Lines) cruise last month, leaving from Barcelona and cruising out to the Canary Islands in the Atlantic. They raved about the great service and value for money. So that was good enough for us and we subsequently booked ourselves on to the same cruise.

We drove down to Barcelona the day before the cruise departed and spent the afternoon  and evening in town. It was nice to be back in Barcelona even though we were only there a week ago, but it is a great city and one we will come back to before we leave Europe. It was a comfortable 3.5 hour drive down the motorway, far better than the train trip we took last week.

Barcelona from the Norwegian Jade

Our cruise ship was the Norwegian Jade, built in 2006, refurbished in 2008 and twice as big (heavy) as the Titanic. We were allowed to board anytime between 12 noon and 5pm. Departure was scheduled for 7pm that evening. It was a painless process to get on board. We dropped our luggage of at the terminal, went through checkin, had our credit card swiped, had our personal swipe cards created, walked on board and went straight to our ‘stateroom’ which was on level 9, which is 2 floors above the main deck. Our room was an internal room, no portholes or balconies for us, but it was comfortable and large enough. We didn’t plan to spend too much time in our room staring out of portholes any way.

The luxurious Norwegian Jade

Our luggage had yet to arrive so we decided to check out the boat. We hadn’t had lunch at this point so we headed for the buffet. The buffet was one of four general restaurants on board (i.e. all inclusive meals). There were 8 other ‘speciality’ restaurants ranging from French to Tempanyaki which attracted a $10-25 cover charge. But the buffet was good enough for most of our meals. There was a great variety, well cooked and presented and the staff were ever so friendly and helpful. This was to turn out to be the distinguishing feature of the cruise. NCL have great staff, mostly from the Philippines and the sub-continent. We felt well looked after.

A bit of a surprise was the price of wine on board. It is not possible to BYO (scanners). We had to pay Australian prices! That definitely was a shock as we had been accustomed to paying a fraction of that in France. It was actually still a bit cheaper that Australian pub prices so it was acceptable. Internet access was extremely expensive though, $100 for 250 minutes. It was slow and erratic and many minutes were wasted reconnecting.

Our first two days were at sea, so we spent those days exploring the ship, chilling out and enjoying the ship’s entertainment. We joined a progressive trivia contest, which was held in a bar each afternoon of the cruise. That was a bit of a trap, as we ended up in the same bar each afternoon. Someone had to do it.

Our first port of call was Arrecife, Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands. Lanzarote is a rather young and consequently barren volcanic island. Arrecife is the main town. There was not much happening here so we had a stroll around for a few hours and head back to the boat. NCL had a number of day excursions but they were quite expensive and really did not sound very interesting, so we decided to make our own fun.

Arrecife, Lanzarote

The Norwegian Jade departed Lanzarote at 5pm. The next morning we were berthed at Santa Cruz de Teneriffe. We were on shore by 10am and stared to explore the town. Santa Cruz was a much more substantial and lush city compared to Arrecife. We decided the best way to see the town was to jump on to one of the topless double decker buses that are in most cities of the world.

Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz was a pretty town. Lots of well maintained buildings and parks. We spent the day walking around, visiting the markets and soaking up the local atmosphere. At this point we actually found ourselves feeling that we’d rather be enjoying the total relaxion on the ship than wandering around a port city! So it was back on board to enjoy the relaxing shipboard life until the next port – Funchal in Madeira the next day.

Santa Cruz fish markets

Farewell Santa Cruz

Madeira

Funchal is a city built around (and on) a steep hill so we decided the first thing we needed to do was go to the top via the cable car. What magnificient views we got as we climbed higher and higher above the port, watching our ship become smaller and smaller down in the water.

After enjoying the views from the top & having a look at the old church, we decided to go down the hill another way – road toboggans!

These oversized baskets with built-in seats are a traditional way of descending the hill and since it looked like fun, we decided to give it a go. Two drivers begin by pulling the toboggan down the slope, but they quickly change to either standing on the back, or running along pushing it from the back. We literally slid down the road halfway back down the hill towards town, laughing and smiling all the way. It was definitely great fun – although finishing up in the middle of hillside suburbia meant that we either had to walk the rest of the way down, or take one of the taxis standing by.

We decided to try walking for the exercise. However, this wasn’t a good choice as the slope of the hill was so steep that our legs were aching in no time. This must be a common occurance because, just as we were thinking how nice it would be to sit in a car, along came one of the taxis to offer us a lift. Thankfully the taxis turned out to be very cheap by our standards.

We wandered around town admiring the scenery and enjoying icecreams before returning to the ship again. One more port to go – Malaga on mainland Spain the next day. We were almost ported-out already by this stage, but each port was turning out to be better than the last, so we were ready to enjoy the last one.

Malaga turned out to be a very nice town, with lots of wide, marble-paved pedestrian streets to wander around and many many lovely little outdoor bars & cafes for enjoying the gorgeous weather. Malaga was the birthplace of Picasso, so we grabbed a map and started our own walking tour, beginning with Picasso’s family home, which is now a small museum & gallery. This was quite interesting so we spent a bit of time there learning about his life & art. There is also a large Picasso museum in town with lots of his art, but we decided to skip that after the house tour.

Continuing with our walking tour, we passed the lovely central Cathedral, the ancient Roman ampitheatre and the Alcazaba (Moorish fortress), as well as all the shops, cafes & restaurants. The weather was just gorgeous, our warmest day so far.

The last two days of the cruise were spent at sea again and after visiting 4 ports in 4 days we were more than ready for those two days completely chilling out. As mentioned, there are many restaurants on board and we ended up trying the French Bistro and the New York steakhouse restaurants (with surcharges) as well as the buffet for our meals. They were both great,  but even in the buffet we were able to have fresh meals made to order – such as (my favourite) pasta with pesto, chillies and garlic.

Our cabin steward (Charles) looked after us well with twice-daily servicing of our room.. including leaving little “surprises” for us to find in the cabin, like our little monkey friend below, hehehe

Being good Aussie travellers, we always kept an ear out for our fellow countrymen and almost didn’t find any on this cruise. Almost. We enjoyed various types of the entertainment provided on board, things such as the trivia quizzes (which we didn’t win by the way), professional shows in the theatre (such as a version of “Shout” with singers & dancers celebrating 60s London music), and “variety” shows and contests in one of the lounge bars. Well one evening we were watching the “Dancing with the Stars” show (passengers paired with one of the cruise staff dancers) when the losers kept getting sent off to the “loser’s room” and interviewed by the guy in charge there. Well as soon as he turned on his microphone, we looked at each other & announced “He’s an Aussie!!!”. After the show, the dancers & singers were all standing around having drinks with each other & passengers, so we sidled up to him, nodded knowingly and said “Hello Aussie!” He was as pleased as punch to meet us, as according to him we were the only Aussie passengers they had come accross. It turns out there were four of them on board so we had a nice drink & chat with all of them.

A couple of days later, we were sitting in our usual spot at the bar for afternoon trivia when two women came along & ordered a bottle of Moet (with a very Australian pronunciation, LOL) so once again we found our heads snapping around & exclaiming “You’re Australian aren’t you?!” So there were two other Aussie passengers, two friends who work for the ATO in Sydney and had come on holiday together.

With all this food & drink, we were a bit worried about our increasing waistlines so we are very proud of our gym efforts. We visited the gym on a total of 6 out of the 10 days for a decent workout, with Rod running on the treadmill and Paige riding cross-country programmes on the bike machines. Unfortunately this didn’t keep some of those extra kilos jumping ship just to come home with us!

All in all it was a great, relaxing holiday, although with the “extras” that you pay for once onboard, it ended up being a little more expensive than we planned. We would still recommend this as a great way to holiday, just plan for those extras in advance. In between all the partying with Aussie singers & dancers, competing with Americans & Canadians for the trivia title, and the multiple restaurants, we managed to also have a swim or two, try out the jacuzzies, and lay about reading books for a while. Very very nice. Paige actually got through three books!

With our 10 days of indulgent relaxation over, we arrived back in Barcelona, collected our car and headed back up the motorway to St Chinian. We were back home in our little cottage by early afternoon.

Next adventure – moving to the North of France for our next phase, and Paige’s trip to Perth to meet our darling little grandson Logan.

Au revoir, à bientôt!