1st June, 2016

Well, the Tour de France continued today, setting out at about 9.15 after an excellent breakfast at our AirBnB courtesy of Catherine and after I nipped in to buy our small supply of Champers. The advantage of having a car!

First stop was Verdun and we very nearly ended up in the wrong one as the satnav set off on the direction of one in a completely different part of France. I had my suspicions when I saw that we were due to arrive at 5.27pm after driving nearly 600 miles! Luckily Val, my trusty personal satnav was on the tried and tested map-reading and we altered course and headed for the right one.

For those who were not paying attention in my History lessons, Verdun was the scene of one of the costliest battles in WWI in terms of casualties, let alone the sanity of those involved. The Germans attacked, the French defended and then it became a point of honour not to give up. Marshal Petain made his famous order of “Ils ne passeront pas” although it seems that it was actually his successor, Nivelle who gave it! End result – approximately 750,000 casualties.

We drove past one of the forts that was one of the targets for the German attack that started in February, 1916 with a bombardment on the first day of 2 million shells and the battle lasted 300 days. Our destination though was the Ossuary at Douamont. This impressive building was started in 1919 and completed in 1932. There is a cemetery on the slope below the building for those French soldiers whose bodies were found, but the building itself contains the bones (hence ossuary) of some 130,000 French and German soldiers whose identity is unknown.It was very moving, as you can imagine and much enhanced by a 20 minute video that was superbly written and narrated.

The pictures below will give you a sense, I hope, of the size of the site and the buildings, though possibly not the surprise I got when I ascended the tower at 1200 to find the BIG bell at the top was due for a good ringing!! Just to mention – they have little windows along the side of the building almost at ground level where you can view the piles of bones. A bit tricky to photograph, but I think you will get the picture. The orange interior is very atmospheric and I have included photos of the 232 stair tower and the separate gravestones of Christian and Muslim soldiers.

From Verdun we then made our way to Dijon. A quick word about the French roads – yes, peage (toll) is a bit pricey, but boy are they good. Not too much traffic, a road surface that is like silk (Val slept very well) and you can safely go 80mph. And barely any roadworks – OK, they were cutting the verge at one point, so we had to slow down to 90kph…..

In Dijon we were again Airbnbing and this time staying with the wonderful Florence and Olivier in their lovely 18th Century apartment near the centre. We set off for some sightseeing and then a fabulous 4 course meal at an excellent restaurant recommended by Florence – cocktails and local white Burgundy included. Dijon is well worth a visit and is a lovely city with plenty of old buildings, pedestrian areas and a sense of space. It was the capital of the independent dukedom of Burgundy which by the second half of the 15th century controlled much of eastern France and the Low Countries. We could easily have spent a weekend there to see all the sights, but we were at least blessed with some sunshine for our sightseeing. The ducal palace is huge and very impressive. Oh yes and amongst the photos below there is a nice photo of me enjoying my cocktail and I know some of you have been longing to know what our accommodation has been like, so I have included photos of our first two nights!

Well, I am already a day behind, so I will post this and start on day 3 – on to Germany!!