Visiting First World War Sites in Flanders, Belgium

Langemark German Cemetery

Tyne Cot Cemetery

Passchendaele 1917 Museum

Black Watch Memorial

Christmas Truce Memorial

In October 2017 along with Alessio and my father we spent a week in Belgium. One of the trips we did was a tour of First World War battlefields. We got picked up from our hotel in Bruges and along with 6 or 7 more people we started our tour.

I can`t remember all the sites we visited but the main ones I do! There were many highlights but seeing Tyne Cot was one of them. Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission burial ground for the dead of First World War in the Ypres Salient on the Western Front. It was a very moving experience walking around and looking at the gravestones and reading the names of the men and seeing their ages too. It is quite astounding to think there are just under 12,000 men buried here. The memorial has the names of nearly 34,000 men missing with no known burial. This is the largest Commonwealth forces cemetery for any war!

We also visited Langemark German Military Cemetery, it is one of only four First World War cemeteries in the Flanders region and it has over 44,000 men buried.

We also went to the Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917, this was very informative and extremely interesting. You find out about the five battles of Ypres, including the battle of Passchendaele, all of them quite horrific! At the end there is reconstruction of the dugouts and trenches which Alessio found quite interesing!

We visited numerous other memorial sites such the Black Watch Memorial, for Americans soliders, memorial for the Christmas Truce football match, Spranbroekmolen Mine Crater, known as the Pool of Peace.

Also we visited the town of Ypres, there we visited the In Flanders Field museum and the Menin Gate. I already did a post about these places a good while ago.

I would definitely suggest doing a tour to see these places, now that it has passed the 100 year mark it is important to remember what happened and that the younger generation continues does not forget!

Happy weekend folks!