Belgium
1985 photos
|
Trips to Belgium
1.
1985 - I first visited Belgium during my Western Europe tour.2. 1999 - We passed through Belgium on our Western European tour during our first around-the-world trip. 3. 2016 - We crossed the border to see Ypres whilst visiting the World War I Somme battle areas in France. |
1985 photos
Taking
long service
leave for the middle
school term in 1985 I went on my first trip to Europe.
(A 13-week Melbourne - Bangkok - Hong Kong -Taipei - Japan - Trans Siberian Railway - UK - Athens -
Israel - Egypt - Western Europe - Singapore - Melbourne trip.)
After a week in London, I left Dover on the ferry Reine Astrid for the port of Ostend in Belgium.
It was a smooth 5-hour cruise across the North Sea.
Ostend is Belgium's 2nd largest port.
We then had an hour and a half drive to Brussels.
Brussels
The Atomium, the space-age leftover from the 1958 World Fair is a representation of an iron molecule.
There is a restaurant in the top sphere.
A shopping arcade in Brussels.
The Gothic Brussels Town Hall and Market Square.
A dairy farm in Belgium.
We crossed into Holland and travelled on to Volderdam.
1999
In June-July-August-September-October 1999 we went on our first around the world trip.
(99-days - Melbourne - Bangkok - Frankfurt - Moscow - St. Petersburg - Stockholm - Helsinki - Copenhagen - Malaga - London -
Western Europe - UK - Egypt - Jordan - Israel - Greece - New York - Las Vegas - Melbourne.)
After a week in London we left Dover on the ferry Kent at the start of our 24-day tour of Western Europe.
We had a smooth, one and a half hour crossing to Calais in France.
Then our bus was quickly off the ferry onto the freeways through Northern France, Belgium and Holland to Amsterdam.
A four country day.
There are no 1999 Belgium photos.
2016 Photos
In 2016 we spent 22 days in the UK on our 49-day Melbourne - Dubai - Paris - World War 1 Western Front Battlefields -
Portugal - England - Wales - Scotland - Dubai - Melbourne trip.
After spending a few days in Paris we caught the fast train to Arras.
We spent 2 days in World War 1 battlefields in the Somme area.
On the third day we visited the battlefields near and over border in Belgium.
(A 13-week Melbourne - Bangkok - Hong Kong -Taipei - Japan - Trans Siberian Railway - UK - Athens -
Israel - Egypt - Western Europe - Singapore - Melbourne trip.)
After a week in London, I left Dover on the ferry Reine Astrid for the port of Ostend in Belgium.
It was a smooth 5-hour cruise across the North Sea.
Ostend is Belgium's 2nd largest port.
We then had an hour and a half drive to Brussels.
Brussels
The Atomium, the space-age leftover from the 1958 World Fair is a representation of an iron molecule.
There is a restaurant in the top sphere.
A shopping arcade in Brussels.
The Gothic Brussels Town Hall and Market Square.
A dairy farm in Belgium.
We crossed into Holland and travelled on to Volderdam.
1999
In June-July-August-September-October 1999 we went on our first around the world trip.
(99-days - Melbourne - Bangkok - Frankfurt - Moscow - St. Petersburg - Stockholm - Helsinki - Copenhagen - Malaga - London -
Western Europe - UK - Egypt - Jordan - Israel - Greece - New York - Las Vegas - Melbourne.)
After a week in London we left Dover on the ferry Kent at the start of our 24-day tour of Western Europe.
We had a smooth, one and a half hour crossing to Calais in France.
Then our bus was quickly off the ferry onto the freeways through Northern France, Belgium and Holland to Amsterdam.
A four country day.
There are no 1999 Belgium photos.
2016 Photos
In 2016 we spent 22 days in the UK on our 49-day Melbourne - Dubai - Paris - World War 1 Western Front Battlefields -
Portugal - England - Wales - Scotland - Dubai - Melbourne trip.
After spending a few days in Paris we caught the fast train to Arras.
We spent 2 days in World War 1 battlefields in the Somme area.
On the third day we visited the battlefields near and over border in Belgium.
Ypres
Ypres is a Belgian city located in the Flemish province of West Flanders.
Though Ieper is the official name, the city's French name, Ypres, is most commonly used in English.
During the First World War, Ypres was the centre of intense and sustained battles between German and Allied forces.
During the war, because the British troops had trouble pronouncing its name, they nicknamed the city "Wipers".
The Cloth Hall, a medieval commercial building, in Ypres, Belgium.
It was one of the largest commercial buildings of the Middle Ages,
when it served as the main market and warehouse for the Flemish city's prosperous cloth industry.
The original structure, erected mainly in the 13th century and completed 1304,
lay in ruins after artillery fire devastated Ypres in World War I.
Between 1933 and 1967, the hall was meticulously reconstructed to its prewar condition.
Australian artillerymen passing the ruins of the Lakenhalle (Cloth Hall), Ypres, September 1917.
We arrived in Ypres late in the afternoon for a meal at a restaurant
before attending the Last Post and wreath-laying ceremony at The Menin Gate.
I had the local speciality - a beef-beer stew.
Margaret had a plate of plaice in a light beer sauce with shrimp.
Chocolate
The Menin Gate
The Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing is a war memorial in Ypres, dedicated to the British
and Commonwealth soldiers who were killed in the Ypres Salient of World War I and whose graves are unknown.
The memorial is located at the eastern exit of the town and marks the starting point
for one of the main roads out of the town that led Allied soldiers to the front line.
Designed, built and maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, the Menin Gate Memorial was unveiled in 1927.
The names of 54,395 Commonwealth soldiers who died in the Salient but whose bodies
have never been identified or found are listed on stone panels.
Following the Menin Gate Memorial opening in 1927, the citizens of Ypres wanted to express their gratitude
towards those who had given their lives for Belgium's freedom.
Hence every evening at 8pm, buglers from the local fire brigade close the road
which passes under the memorial and sound the "Last Post".
Except for the occupation by the Germans in World War II when the daily ceremony was conducted at
Brookwood Military Cemetery, in Surrey, England, this ceremony has been carried on uninterrupted since 2 July 1928.
On the evening that Polish forces liberated Ypres in the Second World War, the ceremony was resumed at the Menin Gate despite the fact that heavy fighting was still taking place in other parts of the town.
We saw an extended version of the ceremony, where individuals or groups may lay a wreath to commemorate the fallen.
Bands and choirs from around the world may also apply to participate in the ceremonies.
And so back to Arras after the 3rd and last day of our excellent and comprehensive WWI battlefields tour.
The next day we travelled by train back to Paris.
Ypres is a Belgian city located in the Flemish province of West Flanders.
Though Ieper is the official name, the city's French name, Ypres, is most commonly used in English.
During the First World War, Ypres was the centre of intense and sustained battles between German and Allied forces.
During the war, because the British troops had trouble pronouncing its name, they nicknamed the city "Wipers".
The Cloth Hall, a medieval commercial building, in Ypres, Belgium.
It was one of the largest commercial buildings of the Middle Ages,
when it served as the main market and warehouse for the Flemish city's prosperous cloth industry.
The original structure, erected mainly in the 13th century and completed 1304,
lay in ruins after artillery fire devastated Ypres in World War I.
Between 1933 and 1967, the hall was meticulously reconstructed to its prewar condition.
Australian artillerymen passing the ruins of the Lakenhalle (Cloth Hall), Ypres, September 1917.
We arrived in Ypres late in the afternoon for a meal at a restaurant
before attending the Last Post and wreath-laying ceremony at The Menin Gate.
I had the local speciality - a beef-beer stew.
Margaret had a plate of plaice in a light beer sauce with shrimp.
Chocolate
The Menin Gate
The Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing is a war memorial in Ypres, dedicated to the British
and Commonwealth soldiers who were killed in the Ypres Salient of World War I and whose graves are unknown.
The memorial is located at the eastern exit of the town and marks the starting point
for one of the main roads out of the town that led Allied soldiers to the front line.
Designed, built and maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, the Menin Gate Memorial was unveiled in 1927.
The names of 54,395 Commonwealth soldiers who died in the Salient but whose bodies
have never been identified or found are listed on stone panels.
Following the Menin Gate Memorial opening in 1927, the citizens of Ypres wanted to express their gratitude
towards those who had given their lives for Belgium's freedom.
Hence every evening at 8pm, buglers from the local fire brigade close the road
which passes under the memorial and sound the "Last Post".
Except for the occupation by the Germans in World War II when the daily ceremony was conducted at
Brookwood Military Cemetery, in Surrey, England, this ceremony has been carried on uninterrupted since 2 July 1928.
On the evening that Polish forces liberated Ypres in the Second World War, the ceremony was resumed at the Menin Gate despite the fact that heavy fighting was still taking place in other parts of the town.
We saw an extended version of the ceremony, where individuals or groups may lay a wreath to commemorate the fallen.
Bands and choirs from around the world may also apply to participate in the ceremonies.
And so back to Arras after the 3rd and last day of our excellent and comprehensive WWI battlefields tour.
The next day we travelled by train back to Paris.
