World War 1

Left Paris at 7:52 and arrived in Arras 8:52.  The town was just waking up and Phillip at our hotel welcomed us.  Our first stop was the Wellington Quarry which just opened this past April:  This quarry was used in WW1...tunnels built 30 metres below .  These were used to tunnel close to enemy lines as well as housing soldiers (20,000) !!!  They were also used during WW2.  there are so many tunnels that they needed directions or people got lost...you can still see the numbers for many of the tunnels.  The April 9, 1917 surprise attack to try to distract the enemy...overwhelm,ing again:

Monument

Next we decided to rent bikes from Phillip to go to Vimy...he  said to ride on the sidewalk in town and then there would be a bike path...which turned out to be the autoroute with big trucks honking at us...we decided our lives were more important so returned the bikes and grabbed a cab...a friend of <Phillip's.  That was our smartest move.  He took us first to the cemetery where the Germans were buried...very moving, then we went to Vimy.  Heather you were right...it is so hard to describe but people need to see it for themselves.  The places where the bombs exploded are left there;  sheep are grazing on much of the Land and people are forbidden from walking on this area as there are still 300,000 undetonated mines in the area!!!

Monument Front

We also toured some of the tunnels that were used similar to those of the quarry.  We got to see some interesting pieces found on the site such including petrol cans that were used for water as well as petrol:  Because it was so dark down in the tunnels it was hard to distinguish them one from the other:  Many soldiers would have taken q drink fro, the gas can.   As well we saw an interesting item called a man trap which was invented by the Swiss, sold to both sides...designed to stab a soldier in the neck or eye or head while crawling through no man's land.  We walked next to the monument which is inspiring and very sad as well.  We found a P Dever and Pallen...not sure if they were related.

Soldier's Grave

Our taxi picked us up just after 6 pm and we enjoyed a typical French dinner on his (cab) recommendation;  The PLACE DE hERO was setting up for a Celine Dion concert in 2 days...tickets were only 60 euros!!!

Must go will continue soon I hope.

Vimy

Watch out!