How appropriate perhaps that on Anzac Day and the 100 year remembrance of Gallipoli, we head north from Beaune towards what was the western front in Europe, to the Lorraine Alsace region and the town of Pont a Mousson.  The next stage of our journey home will be to visit the war memorials that litter this part of Europe, as  a show of respect to those brave souls that paid the ultimate sacrifice which allows us all the freedom to live the lives we do.

Leaving Beaune this morning, we head North east towards the German, Belgian and Luxembourg borders. 

 

I lived in Germany for a number of years and experienced the different driving styles of our near neighbours.  The Germans are very fast but highly disciplined, the Dutch are very slow but poorly disciplined whilst the Belgians are fast and poorly disciplined.  Thankfully, there are are couple of details that identify the licence plates of different nationality drivers giving advanced warning as to who is approaching you  (the dutch have yellow plates with black letters whilst Belgian plates are white with red letters)

The Germans even had a joke about it (really !) which went along the lines of:

Q: what do German drivers get if they fail their driving test?  A: yellow and black number plates

Q: what do the German drivers get if they fail their driving test twice?   A: White and red plates

Ok, maybe not the funniest joke, but the autoroutes were a different place to be today with all these drivers on the same road at the same time!

Today’s campsite was right on the banks of the Moselle river, gone have all remnants of the Rhône and the Soâne which have dominated the landscape for the previous part of the trip.  Arriving at the campsite, right  in time for a thunderstorm to arrive, rolling in over the forested hills of the Ardennes and scattering the flotilla of swans on the river.  As the rain, turned the river into a boiling, seething mass, it was exactly this moment, that George decided he needed to pee– talk about bad timing as we both stood in the rain, his need was greater than mine.

It turned out it was just a “clearing up” shower, so after an hour we were able to walk over the bridge to the town of Pont a Mousson.  The town cannot be described as attractive and has a history of steel production, however it did play a key role in the battle of Nancy in WW2, during which the bridge was destroyed.  Like most French towns, it has  “character” and in this case the character was an hour long concert of “le trompe de chasse ” (a concert of the hunting horn) in the town square, outside the Hotel de Ville, regaled in national flags.  The orchestra even wore thir traditional costume.

 

Returning to Reg, we settled down to a quiet evening enjoyin the changing sky, the city scape and the nature on the river, a tranquil day, possible due to the bravery of others. 

   

     

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.