Saturday, March 17th (also known as St. Patrick's Day) I, along with a fellow Canadian named Serena, and an American named Jon, took a day trip to go explore Vimy Ridge. Our day started at Gare Lille Flandres where we bought tickets that would take us from Lille, to Lens, to Vimy. When we got to Lens, we had about a half hour to kill before our next train so we decided to get some frites a.k.a french fries! Next it was on to Vimy! When our train got there, we got off onto a rickety wooden platform out in the middle of nowhere. We soon discovered that we were on the wrong side of the train tracks so we crossed over, but we were still unsure of where to go. It seriously looked like there was a zombie apocalypse in Vimy and it wasn't even a Sunday. Stores didn't look like they were open and we saw a total of one person and one cat for a good 10 minutes of walking. As we made our way along the deserted road we discovered a 8 a Huit (a French convenience store) and realized that there were in fact inhabitants in the town. We asked for directions at the 8 a Huit and took off for a 45 minute walk to get to Vimy Ridge. Along the way we admired the ivy covered trees. It looked like there was going to be a hobbit that would poke its head out from behind a tree at any moment. It was obvious when we finally got to the site because the majority of the land was full of bumps and craters because of the explosives that were set of during WWI and it was sectioned off with a little electric fence so that people wouldn't walk through it (possible explosives left in the ground). We explored the reconstructed trenches with cement sandbag lookalikes when a man, coincidentally who also lived in Lille, told us that we could go underground if we signed up for a tour inside, so... we did just that! We were just in time for the next tour so we jumped in the group and followed along into the depths of the 10 foot underground trenches. Everything had been re-done to make it safe for visitors - what used to be wooden beams and were now metal and parts of the roof and walls were filled in with cement. When the Canadians were digging the trenches in WWI, they were digging in chalk which made things a lot easier for them because chalk was easy to cut through, but it still kept its shape. We got to see a small room where they would sleep which had 8-10 beds in it at a time. Not exactly ideal living conditions. We also got to see what is believed to be an original carving by a soldier in the chalk of a Canadian maple leaf... pretty neat! Next we went outside where we learned about trenches, snipers, no man's land, and craters. Short tour, but overall really informative and let's face it, my attention span wouldn't have been able to handle much more haha. After that we took a look inside the Welcome Centre and picked up a map so we could go see the Canadian memorial. The memorial is situated in the middle of a bright green field, with paths leading up to it, overlooking a town (not sure which one exactly). It's really quite stunning. It cost $1.5 million to build and it has the name of every single Canadian soldier carved into the bottom, but it was put in place to remember each soldier who lost their life fighting for their country in WWI. We ended up talking to a lady from Canada and she had a niece who was going to school at the Mount. Talk about a small world! After that we took a cab to the Gare d'Arras (easier and more straight forward to catch a train from there instead of Vimy) and then took a train back home to Lille. That night was a pretty relaxed night, despite it being St. Patrick's Day. I took a nap and then went to Jon's room to play cards and hang out with Jon, Serena, and Kaylee (also from America). Overall, a successful, fun, and educational day!
Bisous!
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