Flanders/Flanders Field

[TMLAalum]

During our 7-3 port stop in Zeebrugge we are considering one of these 2 Celebrity excursions:

Scenic Flanders (4 hours): Relax on a motorcoach journey through the countryside on a narrated tour with free time in an old-fashioned Flemish village. You’ll see the huge walls that protected Bruges for centuries and stop at one of Flanders’ largest chocolate shops. Visit Damme, a small town that retains its historic charm. Browse a village bookstore, or relax in a cafe. You’ll also see Loppem Castle, a Neo-Gothic masterpiece surrounded by ponds and a shrubbery maze

or...

Ypres-In Flanders Field (7 hours): Discover the war-torn history of Ypres, where 500,000 were killed and more than a million wounded during World War I. Visit Tyne Cot cemetery, the largest British and Commonwealth war cemetery in the world. Placed here are 11,953 headstones of soldiers who were killed, or who died of wounds, between 1914 and 1918. At the back of the cemetery stands a wall with the 33,783 names of the soldiers reported missing from August 16, 1917 until the end of the war. Hear the story of John McCrae, who penned the famous war poem “In Flanders Fields” and visit the museum now set on this hallowed ground. Learn about epic battles, heroic solders, and ordinary citizens trying to survive, as the saga of WWI comes alive before you.

Neither includes lunch and the second tour description gives no indication of free time, which we would like.

Any Thoughts?

BTW, we've enjoyed Bruges on past cruises so are seeking to experience options beyond.

 

Edited June 26 by TMLAalum

[markeb]

Damme is in East Flanders; Ypres is West Flanders. About 60-70 miles apart. I've never been to Damme; I've been to Ypres twice. If you're at all into WWI history, it's a fascinating visit, depending somewhat on where they go. Ypres was pretty much destroyed in the war. There was minimal US presence; the sites are UK/Canadian (John McCrae) and obviously Belgian. The British and Commonwealth Cemetery is huge (unfortunately) and impressive. The small German Cemetery is very near the site of the first use of chemical weapons.

 

The city museum is well done, and the reconstructed city is beautiful. I assume that's the museum they're talking about. It is in the heart of the city, so I'd expect some free time there. The nearby Menin Gate is a memorial to the missing. On a ship's tour there's no way you'd be there for Last Post, which is impressive.

 

Both times I was in Ypres I was traveling from Brussels. Once by train after an overnight flight and once by bus. I don't know what the countryside looks like from Zeebrugge. 7 hours is obviously a long excursion, and from a American standpoint Ypres probably requires a greater than average interest in WWI. If that's you, there are a lot of interesting sites in the area, depending on where the tour is going. 

[John Bull]

The description of the Ypres trip is a pretty vague summary

By coach it's about 1hr 15 e/w, so you'll have about 4 1/2 hrs in the area.

 

Tyne Cot is pretty sobering, but will cost you no more than an hour. 

Ypres is a pleasant little town, plenty of watering holes, I'm sure you'll have free time there. Do be sure to visit the Menim Gate, where buglers have sounded Last Post every evening for almost 100 years (barring WW2 occupation years). 

 "In Flanders Fields" is a museum in the meticulously re-built Cloth Hall - just a stump of that magnificent building had remained by the end of the war. Your tour bus will probably park close to it and the adjacent cathedral (also re-built to the original plans). Near Ypres are a number of remaining trenches, and half-a-dozen very interesting privately-run museums of WW1 artefacts - but the only one in the town is that govt-funded "In Flanders Fields" museum, and altho the building is magnificent we found the museum itself under-whelming. Like other modernist museums that we've seen in the world, there are few artefacts with lots of space between them. Mebbe I don't have an artistic mind but I prefer a lot more to see.

The inspiration for the museum name is a poem by a Canadian soldier about the carnage on the Western Front   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Flanders_Fields

 

BTW, unexploded WW1 shells which continue to appear in large numbers during ploughing seasons are known as "The Iron Harvest"  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_harvest
 

Sorry, can't help with the other trip

 

JB 🙂

[Harters]

In real life, I am an amateur military historian, the author of four books on the Great War and one of two  founding members of the In From the Cold Project which works with the War Graves Commission to identify casualties who, for whatever reason, slipped through the net of official commemoration. I've visited the Ypres/Ieper area many times over the years and every time have found it fascinating. That said, I have always been visiting for specific purposes. 

 

Tyne Cot Cemetery is a moving experience mainly because of its size. As mentioned in the tour summary, it also has a memorial wall with the names of the men who were killed but who have no known grave. Men from my local area whose lives and deaths I have researched are buried and commemorated there. There is a relatively new interpretative centre (and toilets) near the parking area. FWIW, the "Tyne Cot" of the name refers to German pillboxes, of which there are still remains at the site. The British soldiers said they resembled Tyneside cottages.

 

With mention of Canadian John McCrae, the tour may well also visit Essex Farm CWGC cemetery as it's often on  the "war tourist" route. This was a field dressing station during the war and McCrae was a doctor based here in 1915. It's a much smaller cemetery than Tyne Cot but is much more representative of front line battlefield burial grounds. 

 

The "In Flanders Field" Museum is excellent and I'd recommend it to anyone visiting Ieper. It's in the town centre and close to the Grote Markt (the town square) where you'd find restaurants and cafes for lunch. Make sure you also visit the Menin Gate which is another "memorial to the missing" and which also contains the names of a goodly number of men from my town, mainly killed during the Third Battle of Ypres. You will probably miss the nightly ceremony at the Gate where the Fire Brigade bugle band sounds the last post, as they have done nightly since the 1920s (except for the period of German occupation in WW2). 

https://lastpost.be/about/

 

Do this trip and  you will learn something of the British Army's involvement in the conflict in this area but bear in mind you will only be scratching the surface.

 

 

[TMLAalum]

Thanks to all of you for your detailed replies. They've helped me realize that if we choose Flanders Field for our excursion, I will need to spend the next year delving into its history to better appreciate the battle site.

 

[Harters]

If you do decide on the battlefield visit, may I make the suggestion I make to anyone who doesnt have a direct family connection with a casualty. And that's to use the War Graves Commission website to look up whether there's anyone buried at Tyne Cot, or commemorated there (or the Menin Gate memorial) with the same surname. It may not be a family member but it sort of personalises the visit if you go to their grave or inscription on the memorial. 

 

I started making this suggestion years back when my niece,  then aged about 15, was on school trip and rang me from a cemetery saying she'd come across a grave with the family name and wanted to know if it was an ancestor. I was able to check out the name very quickly and confirm  that it was unlikely to be someone from the family but she went away with a connection to that young man who had died before her grandfather had been born. 

[ski ww]

If you are interested in history then Ypres - Flanders Field is the tour I would be on. We have been twice, it is very sobering & opens your eyes. 

[Harters]

Ski - noting your location, did you manage to get to see the Canadian "Brooding Soldier" memorial not far outside Ieper (on the main road to Bruges). It's one of the most impressive war memorials I know - commemorates the Canadian troops who stood firm and held the line when the Germans launched the first ever poison gas attack. 

 

https://www.veterans.gc.ca/en/remembrance/memorials/st-julien

[John Bull]

20 minutes ago, Harters said:

Ieper

 

 

That takes me back a good few years to when I researched my first visit to Ypres.

Couldn't find "Ypres" on googlemaps, but knew it was somewhere near "Ieper" on their map.

It took me a remarkably long time to figure that in googlemap's typeface at that time "I" was both a small L and a capital "i" , and that their Ieper (which I read as Leper) is the Belgian spelling of Ypres. 

 

Life would have been easier for me if they'd done what the British tommies did and called it "Wipers". 😃  

 

JB 🙂

[Harters]

8 minutes ago, John Bull said:

the Belgian spelling of Ypres. 

Ah, you touch on a big historical and cultural issue in Belgium. As you'll know, the country is effectively divided into two. The French speaking part in the south and the Dutch speaking part in the north (although Brussels in French speaking, although its in Dutch speaking Flanders). Back in the time of the Great War (and for some considerable time after), the Francophones dominated society and the Dutch speakers were very much second class citizens (effectively an issue of racism). The Yser Tower museum at Diksmuide documents this well.

 

In more recent times, the division has been much more formally recognised and the dominant language (and culture) in a province is now the "official" language there. West Flanders is a Dutch speaking province, hence the change of name from the French Ypres to the Dutch Ieper. It's had its less than helpful consequences - not least in the rise of a Flemish nationalist political party which wants independence for the Dutch speaking areas.

 

If you're driving round the area, it can be all but impossible to know whether youre in a French or Dutch speaking area, as the border between provinces might run along a small winding stream. In fact, it can be tricky knowing if you're in Belgium or France. On one trip, I went to photograph a bar that had been mentioned in one soldiers diary. I found it, in France, and took a photo. Then I walked a few yards down the small side road to take another shot and there I was back in Belgium. 

[Harters]

3 hours ago, John Bull said:

they'd done what the British tommies did and called it "Wipers"

As a nation, we're not particularly well known for our command of other languages. The Tommies are very good at making their own version of "foreign" place names. 

 

My favourite one in Belgium was "God wears velvet" for the village of Godewaersvelde. And in France, my grandfather first saw action near the village of Fonquevillers - know to the Tommies as "Funky Villas"

[ski ww]

9 hours ago, Harters said:

Ski - noting your location, did you manage to get to see the Canadian "Brooding Soldier" memorial not far outside Ieper (on the main road to Bruges). It's one of the most impressive war memorials I know - commemorates the Canadian troops who stood firm and held the line when the Germans launched the first ever poison gas attack. 

 

https://www.veterans.gc.ca/en/remembrance/memorials/st-julien

No I did not, didn't know about it. Would of been interesting to visit.