June 24 - Ieper

 June 24 - Ieper

This morning started with our first real rain of the trip (not surprising really after tempting fate yesterday 😊) but it wasn’t an issue as the plan today was to spend some time in the ‘In Flanders Field’ museum (named after a poem written by a WWI army doctor). 


Providing an excellent and informative overview of WWI, and with an obvious focus on the Western Front in Flanders, the museum visit was terrific and the three or so hours we spent in there just flew by.  The museum uses an excellent combination of traditional museum exhibits (maps, documents, etc.) plus audiovisual presentations and re-creation displays to provide a pretty special experience.  One example of this type of presentation was an interactive video with four soldiers, French, English, German and Belgian, who were talking about Christmas Day in 1914. This was when a truce was held and soldiers celebrated Christmas with each other, sharing what they had, and singing Christmas carols with each other. Each soldier came in and out of view and told of their experiences, and, although they were actors, the scripts were actually from diaries of the time, it was really moving. There were many other examples of a similar ilk but this museum is a must-see for anyone visiting here. 




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