Happy New Year to you all! We saw the New Year in at the lovely town of Arras,
which was our next stop after leaving the Aire at
Villeneuve-Renneville-Chevigny. Heading
out of Champagne land and on to Arras, the weather started warming up, going
from 1°C up to 10°C – almost T-shirt weather ha-ha! Most of the way the roads were quiet,
straight and long. There are so many of these lovely tree-lined roads in France, which Napoleon had planted so his troops could march in the shade.
Arriving at the official Arras Aire, the spaces were tight with everyone
packed in like sardines with hardly enough room to open your door to get in and
out - not ideal. It’s a free Aire, with a couple of
electric points but we didn’t need any facilities, as we were full of water and both leisure batteries fully charged, so we decided to find somewhere else. A
quick check on the ‘Park4Night’ App revealed a parking area down by a canal, so that’s where we headed (N50.298673 E2.777644). We were the only motorhome there and it was
lovely and peaceful, apart from a couple of farmyard animals (a donkey, a few ducks and hens) just over the way from us.
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| Sonny's New Year spot at Arras, by the canal |
From here it's a little over one km walk into the centre. Arras is famous for
its Flemish-Baroque style squares – Grand Place and Place des Héros. They were both virtually destroyed during WW1, including the cathedral,
bell tower and town hall and only 5% of the
houses in the town survived intact. The
law of 17 April 1919 relating to war damages ruled that ancient monuments
should be rebuilt to what they had been before the damage and the 155 houses around the square were made
listed buildings and rebuilding took from 1919 to 1934 to
restore the square to how it used to be.
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| Place des Héros |
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| Town Hall and Belfry in Place des Héros, with the New Year's Eve Farmers Market taking place |
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| Former site of The Chapel of the Holy Candle of Arras - in its place now stands a café and chocolate house! |
The last time we were in Arras was a few years ago in summertime and the Grand Pace was converted
into a giant beach, this time it was a Christmas village, although they were in the process of dismantling it.
We started our New Year celebrations early by having a couple of lunch-time drinks in a bar with
the locals. Everything was starting to close up for New Year
Celebrations and we had originally thought
we would eat out but with few restaurants open, we decided to buy some food off the Farmers Market on the square. It all looked lovely the Fish, the meat, all the cheeses and cakes. Our first though was go for Salmon but at an expensive €32 a kilo we gave it a miss! We bought a couple of Steaks, mushrooms, garlic, and veg and some delicious
strawberry tarts. The steaks weren't cheap at €13 but when cooked were one of the nicest we have tasted!
We had two New Year celebrations, as the clock struck midnight in France
and fireworks going off all around us we popped open the champagne.
We then counted it down with Jules Holland on the TV - UK time and as the clock
chimed midnight we phoned our daughter, who was celebrating with her fiancé and
our son and his girlfriend, who were over from Spain. We all sung Auld Lang Syne down the phone to
each other and the champagne was flowing on both sides of the water! We eventually hit the sack just
before 2am surprisingly quite sober!
We set off from Arras midday and headed 10kms north to Vimy, where the ‘Battle
of Vimy Ridge’ took place. The battle
was a turning point in the First World War, taking place from 9-12 April 1917. As part of the British-led Battle of Arras,
four divisions of the Canadian Corps came together and captured the German-held
high ground of Vimy Ridge. The Canadian Corps and British XVII Corps captured
more ground, prisoners and guns than any previous British Force Offence and its
capture enabled the British Forces to advance south.
Four days of intense fighting cost the lives of thousands and inscribed
on the memorial are the names of 11,285 Canadian soldiers who were posted
‘missing, presumed dead’ in France. The monument is the centre piece of a 250 acre preserved battlefield and built on the highest point of the ridge. It took 11 years to build and was a tricky operation not just because of the size of it but given the fact that the site is littered with bombs and shells. The two pylons represent Canada and France and the life size figures all bear a meaning.
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| Canadian National Vimy Memorial, unveiled on 26 July 1936 by King Edward VIII |
Within the grounds are many wartime tunnels, closed off to the public
apart from one and can only be visited by an arranged tour. Some of the
trenches have been rebuilt and you can walk around these. You can only try and imagine what life must
have been like for those soldiers. The site is full of craters and most of the area has electric fences around it, as there are still a lot of unexploded devices and traps on the land. In 1998 Colonel Watkins, a British military explosives officer lost his life whilst trying to dismantle an unexploded mine that lay 22 metres under the site since World War 1.
Over the years we have visited many war cemeteries around the Somme,
Normandy, Brittany and other parts of Europe. Seeing all the graves makes you
realise all the sacrifices made.
Although this is a memorial, with no graves the fact that there are over
11,000 names of those who died fighting makes it nonetheless moving. Fom Vimy, it was a short drive to Maisnil-les-Ruitz (N50.44049 E2.57465). It’s a barriered Aire within a park - for
€9.50 you get all the usual facilities plus electric. As it is part of a camping/Lodge area there are
heated shower and toilet blocks as well.
We move on to Calais later today in readiness to catch the train through
the Channel Tunnel tomorrow, as our Year 2 travels around Europe comes to an end. We have spent the last few days reminiscing about all the places we have
visited in 2018 and where we go next.
In 2017 we did 11 months straight on the road but this year was a year
of 2 halves, January to July, then August until now.
We love motorhoming and the lifestyle, and we are lucky to be able to travel and see so many wonderful places. We are not sure though if we could
do another long stretch on the road so our next tour will probably be between
3-6 months, health and money permitting. It is sad that this tour is coming to an end but we are looking forward to going back to the UK and excited to see our
daughter and son again. And then, who knows what 2019 has in store for us!
Wishing you all a Very Happy and Healthy 2019.
Sally x
