(Peace is the same no matter what the language… panels from the Memorial at Notre Dame de Lorette National Cemetery)

We are travelling again. In fact we have been travelling for a bit now… We travelled through Normandy (France) and into Belgium and now we are in Holland. We are staying at a farm in the middle of the countryside.

(There’s a pet hen who thinks she’s a dog!)

I can safely say it’s the most peaceful camping spot we’ve been to this year. But we’ve been to other peaceful places.

(Veulettes sur Mer in Normandy.)

We don’t usually stay very long in northern France when we travel in the off season. We’re in search of warmth and the warmest place is the south. But this is summer and so the warmest (that is, not the hottest) place is the north so we thought sure it’ll be grand, probably not as nice as the Loire or further south but still… We were wrong, it is truly amazing.

(Sunset in Saint Valery en Caux)

Denis is very interested in history and he has for a long time wanted to do a tour of the first World War sites in France and Belgium. A couple of Sundays ago in France we visited two near the town of Arras. The first one was Notre Dame de Lorette National Cemetery. It’s the largest French war cemetery with 40,000 soldiers buried here.

(Some of the graves at Notre Dame de Lorette National Cemetery)

Opposite the cemetery there’s a modern memorial to all the soldiers who died in two local departments (kinda like counties, I think) – Nord and Pas de Calais, between 1914 and 1918. The memorial is for ALL the soldiers… no matter what country they came from nor what side they fought on.

(We even found our names on the list…)

 

 

 

 

There are 580,000 names listed. That’s over half a million people. Does it sound weird to say it was a really peaceful place? Well it was, really peaceful.

 

 

I’ve been thinking about peace a lot on this journey, Mairead.