Ypres and Brugge
Wednesday, May 6: Ypres and Brugge. The weather, as you may notice in the photos, has changed to cloudy, some rain, and quite a biting cold wind at times, especially as we arrived in Ypres. This was another "along the way afterthought" with limited expectations that were vastly exceeded. As you may know, Ypres was more or less the centre of the horrific trench warfare of WW1. It was left in such ruins that many people, including Winston Churchill, advocated for leaving it as a gigantic memorial to the horror. The Belgians had other ideas, and have rebuilt the city upon its foundations, to the point where it could well be taken for an authentic Renaissance era city. The huge "cloth market" building takes up much of the centre of town, and contains the "Flanders Fields Museum" in which we spent at least 2 hours. The only relative we know of who experienced the trenches was Pat's maternal grandfather, Captain Wilfrid Ord. We have at home, dozens of his h...