Vimy Ridge

Greg:  Back in Winnipeg, Vimy Ridge Memorial Park in Wolseley offers a place to cool off in the summer splash pad, do flips on the swings, or even to kick soccer balls into garbage cans.  Given our close ties to Vimy, we set out to visit the 250 acres given by France to Canada in perpetuity.








Cynthia:  The monument is really a beautiful work of art.  The sheer size of it is really impressive and our pictures don't really do it justice.  Unlike some of the other historical war sites we had visited, this monument emphasizes the horrible price of war, the suffering of soldiers and mourners as well as (supposed) values of Canadians eg compassion for the helpless.  The visit was well worth it though I'm not sure how much our boys absorbed.  We also toured the trenches and tunnels neighbouring the monument.   Would advise a trip here for any Canadians touring northern France.

 


Max: I thought that the trenches were very interesting, before we visited the trenches i didn't know very much about them or about the war itself. I learned that the tunnels could be up to 1 km long.

Cathedral of Rouen

Greg here.

You may notice I added a "follow by email" widget just to the right.  I hope that it is simpler than the "subscribe to" method of following along with our posts.

Today I was able to upload a bunch of photos to Flickr.  If you care to see more pictures, take a look at the first two sets of photos: France first days and Normandy.  If you have trouble accessing them, please email me I will fiddle with the permissions.

I'd like to share with you some photos that Thomas took the other day.  At the Cathedral of Rouen, Thomas took a pile of pictures.  Once again, he impressed us with his artistic eye.

Capturing the space

Thomas put together a few of these photos in an iCloud journal.  I'm sure he would be pleased if you left comments for him below.  BTW, the Cathedral of Rouen was the tallest structure in the world from 1876 til 1880.

Tour of Normandy

Oh the French do know how to eat well.

We're spending the first part of the trip with the Speiser clan.  Greg's brother Russell with wife Marj live in a suburb of Paris doing Christian mission work.  Their home is our home here in France.  Mom and Dad Speiser (Larry and Marie) have joined us for a nice two week holiday together and we've just spent the last three nights touring Normandy.  We've scaled the magnificent Mont St Michel, toured numerous D-day beaches and other WWII historical sites and capped off the trip with lovely strolls along the harbour fronts of quaint and touristy Normandy towns.

Mont St Michel

On our first day we stopped for a little urban picnic by the grand Cathedral of Rouen. (Cynthia: "are there open liquor laws in France?".  Russ: "yes, you must open the liquor.")  I was naturally delighted when Marj reproduced similar picnics on subsequent traveling days and looked forward to our outdoor midday feasts: fresh baguette, red wine, Emmental cheese, foi gras, hard boiled eggs, cured meats, creamy yoghurts and bakery delights.

Urban picnic in Rouen

Check out the German bunker in the background.

 

On our final day we could not leave Normandy without taking in their gastronomic specialties: fresh oysters by the harbour market and cafe crepes with a bowl of cider.

Max about to eat his traditional buckwheat crepe.  Note the 'bowl' of cider.