France!!!!
We hopped on the bus about 8.30am and headed off to Verdun. 2.5 hrs on the bus awaits us.
Interesting how the landscape changes from Germany to France. Germany, so lush and green and France open and with so much plain land. For some reason I find myself dreaming about how this might have looked in war time. Bizarre.
We enter Verdun and as is usual practice for bus drivers the world over they never research where they are going to park when they arrive at their destination. Must be a union thing.
The town is old and we pause at the river and the city gates. From here the group breaks up and does their own thing. I find a coffee shop and a bank. I start asking the Barista for coffee in French and they tell me he is Italian. Gimme a break. Anyway coffee superb and I get free wifi.
Following a leisurely sit and chat with my beautiful wife I seek out lunch. I am with Andrew, a parent from BGS, whose boy is on tour. We find a restaurant and sit down to order. He orders a $50 bottle of Champagne. It is very good. Very very good in fact. So I order a steak to go along with this and we sit down to enjoy a long lunch. Most shops are closed between 12-2.30pm. My steak is superb and I hear many stories about his 'Champagne' lifestyle. He has been a lot of places and drinks some very expensive drinks. He even has a cellar off site where he stores expensive bottles that he hopes to age into more value. He is obviously quite wealthy as he goes overseas 2 months wvey year.
Anyway we finish lunch and then rejoin the group. Mind you I could have sat there all aftenoon.
We travel to the Verdun memorial where 140000 people died in a few days fighting. Their is an Ossary underneath the memorial where you can look at the piles of bones of unnamed soldiers. Freaky. If that wasn't enough to give you a sense of how much life was lost for the sake of a hill we went to another very small memorial where a village once existed. When I say once existed I mean they bombed it out of existence in 1916. There is no building standing. Amongst the trees are very small rolling hills ( like moguls in the snow) - they are bomb craters. The 3 town streets are recreated and each of the pre- existing houses is staked by a marker in front of where it used to be. In recognition of the town that' gave its life for France' they still recognise the town officially and they still ah e a mayor of the town.
Very sobering.
We then drove 2 hours home and had dinner.
Following dinner we had a coaches debrief and sat and watched the Euro 21 final Sweden vs Portugal. A few beers and a couple of red wines and we toddled off to be about 11.30pm. The beer is cheaper than soft drink and no preservatives. It is part of their national heritage. It is actually against the law to put preservatives in their beer. So for $1.80 for a schooner we are spending very little.
Off to bed and visit Elversberg school tomorrow.