2geonomads

Friday 30th October 2015

Start the day checking the match prior to our journey into the Somme region. Gail has marked one of the maps with various symbols and/or notes but she is not sure if  one particular site is a museum or a hotel. It should make for either very substandard accommodation or a decidedly boring museum.

Come what may Isabelle duly arrives at the agreed checkout time of 10.00 am and we say goodbye to this very stylish lady and her superb country house which we would have no hesitation in recommending to others.

We soon  find ourselves on a number of minor roads as we head north, bypassing the towns of Soissons, Chauny, and St Quentin. The early misty weather gradually clears and given the fairly mild temperatures we enjoy a pleasant, if unspectacular drive through the French countryside. By this stage we are both suffering from caffeine-withdrawal symptoms  but we have to wait until we reach the town of Peronne before we get our fix at the cafe close to the magnificent museum Historial of the Great War.

As we have to wait until the museum re-opens at 2pm we relax and enjoy the afternoon sun and our homemade salad roll outside the entrance.

We could not have asked for a better introduction to Somme area and we spend 3 very informative but thought-provoking hours at this great museum. The Historial unique collection  allows the visitor to see not only how the soldiers lived on and behind the front lines but also how the civilian population lived. We are taken into a special Australian section where a 30 minute self- guided tour complete with a virtual map and some very graphic footage shown on large screens certainly brings home to us the suffering of the soldiers and the horrors of war.

The museum was opened in 1992 and is still something of a work in progress but never was the futility of war better illustrated than in this memorable site. This visit certainly takes us back to a previous visit to Auschwitz Concentration Camp when the weather had been truly awful. Today it somehow doesn’t seem fitting that we should be viewing the hundreds of memorials similar to this one and the vast cemeteries that dot the countryside on this glorious sunny autumn day.

We eventually leave Peronne in a suitably sombre mood and make our way to Hotel de la Paix in the small town of Bapaume, which will be our home for the next two nights.

After dinner in the hotel restaurant we finish off the day by watching SA v Argentina. It’s one game too much for the Pumas and the Springboks prevail.

Cheers

The Obese Ferret