Waterloo
30th of April 2023
We have driven through Belgium countless times and have seen the signs pointing to Waterloo and have said we must go there and have a look. As it is our Last Waltz Tour it was now or never. As we has only stayed the night 10 kms away we arrived early parked up and had a look around. Jenny was feeling sick that day so a walk to the top of the Lion Mound was not going to happen. The mound is artifically built with, yes you guessed it a Lion statue. As we didn’t make the effort to climb to the top I sent our drone to have a look. With time ticking away we opted not to visit the museum and head off into France.
Below are a couple of videos , the first as we drove into the town of Waterloo, we put the appropriate music on for the occasion. The second video is of the battle site showing the Lion Monument on top of the hill.
Warlencourt British Cemetry
We knew we were driving through World War One sites as there were numerous cemeteries along the road and many signs pointing to others. We stopped at the Warlencourt British Cemetery a commonwealth site with many Australians buried there. We stopped to pay our respects, pondering the great waste of human life. We continued down the road and after driving through the village of Posiers we knew that Villiers- Bretonneux was close.
Villiers- Bretonneux
Villers-Bretonneux is the Australian War Memorial in France and just recently ANZAC dat was commemorated there. The last time we were in Villers- Bretonneux was in 2017 and the Sir John Monash Centre was just a hole in the ground and as it was on our route we decided to see what become of the hole. The place is free to enter, and the friendly staff assisted us with our headphones and connection to the audio. We spent two and a half hours viewing the information on the audio screens, very well done, informative but also very moving. When handing back our headsets we were told that a bagpiper was to walk through the cemetery and up to the tower, playing at 5.30. We waited the half hour and was surprised at how many people turned up to see the spectacle.
We left at 6.00 and headed to a place that we had stayed in 2017 a place next to a river. After a long drive and a busy day it was early to bed.
If you like the sound of bagpipes please have a look at the video. If you think bagpipes sounds like cats in a vice you should probably give it a miss.
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Thought my ex husband would have a heart attack climbing the Wellington mound! Good view of the battlefields though.