Day 5, 10 May - Lorraine
Finally, some good weather today. Sunny with high cirrus clouds and 75 degrees.
We woke up early to try to get a head start on our day trip to the Lorraine region, which is a little north and west of Alsace. Our first stop was going to be the town of Nancy. Then, time permitting; I wanted to go even further into Lorraine to Verdun, the site of one of the largest and longest battles of World War 1.
It took us about 2 hours to get to Nancy. When we got there, we were greeted with a much larger city than either of us expected. We parked in an underground lot and walked down to the center of it all, Place Stanislas. Now, this place was impressive. Surrounded on all sides by beautiful Neoclassical architecture, all decked out with the “Bleu-Blanc-Rouge” of the French tricolored flag, still hung out in celebration of the VE Day holiday. Unfortunately, the charm of Nancy doesn’t really extend much past Place Stanislas. The “Vielle Ville,” or old town was tiny and unimpressive. We managed to pick up some sandwiches from a Boulangerie and had lunch, but we wound up leaving Nancy having felt a little “cheated” by it.
As it was still fairly early, we decided to try to get to Verdun. The drive up was fantastic. We tried to use a little of the “France’s Best Loved Driving Tours” tour #17 today and the small “D” roads that we took were generally very well kept and very scenic; winding their way through very pastoral farm land and over and around the smallish mountains that dot this region. On the way there, we took a short detour to the town of Remeneauville, a small town on the front lines during the battle of Verdun that was completely and utterly destroyed. All that’s really left are some stone fragments and lots and lots of shell craters.
We got to Verdun by 5 or so and experienced a little bit of the history of the battle at the Verdun Battlefield Memorial. The museum was very well done; with lots of exhibits of period weapons and artillery pieces and ordnance that has been recovered from the battlefield. The site of the battle is generally uninhabitable since there is so much unexploded ordnance still buried in the ground. Millions and millions of rounds of artillery rounds were lobbed over the battlefield during the 10 months that it raged.
After the memorial museum, we went to the “Ossuare de Douaumont,” a giant cemetery dedicated to the 750,000 soldiers that died during the Verdun Campaign. At this particular memorial are 130,000 graves dedicated to the unidentified remains that were gathered from the battlefield. Now this place didn’t have nearly the effect on me that Omaha Beach and the American Memorial Cemetery in Colleville did when we were there in 2000, but it was still very sobering to see the terrain in the area is still to this day this mass of grassy mounds and hollows; almost permanently disfigured from the fighting.
Following the tour #17 route, we happened upon yet another monument to the battle; but this time it is an American monument (at Montsec) dedicated to the American soldiers who fought alongside the French during the battles of the “St. Mihiel Salient.” It’s a piece of land granted to the USA by the French in perpetuity and it’s managed by the American Battle Monuments Commission.
By the time we finally got back “home” to our hotel, it was 10:30pm. We decided to just gut it out until we got back before eating, so by the time we did finally roll into our room, we just ordered up some “Croque Monsieurs” for room service.
Tomorrow, the weather in Alsace should be serviceable, so we’re going to head south down into the wine region and the Vosges mountains. I doubt very seriously that we will be in the car nearly as long as we were today.
We woke up early to try to get a head start on our day trip to the Lorraine region, which is a little north and west of Alsace. Our first stop was going to be the town of Nancy. Then, time permitting; I wanted to go even further into Lorraine to Verdun, the site of one of the largest and longest battles of World War 1.
It took us about 2 hours to get to Nancy. When we got there, we were greeted with a much larger city than either of us expected. We parked in an underground lot and walked down to the center of it all, Place Stanislas. Now, this place was impressive. Surrounded on all sides by beautiful Neoclassical architecture, all decked out with the “Bleu-Blanc-Rouge” of the French tricolored flag, still hung out in celebration of the VE Day holiday. Unfortunately, the charm of Nancy doesn’t really extend much past Place Stanislas. The “Vielle Ville,” or old town was tiny and unimpressive. We managed to pick up some sandwiches from a Boulangerie and had lunch, but we wound up leaving Nancy having felt a little “cheated” by it.
As it was still fairly early, we decided to try to get to Verdun. The drive up was fantastic. We tried to use a little of the “France’s Best Loved Driving Tours” tour #17 today and the small “D” roads that we took were generally very well kept and very scenic; winding their way through very pastoral farm land and over and around the smallish mountains that dot this region. On the way there, we took a short detour to the town of Remeneauville, a small town on the front lines during the battle of Verdun that was completely and utterly destroyed. All that’s really left are some stone fragments and lots and lots of shell craters.
We got to Verdun by 5 or so and experienced a little bit of the history of the battle at the Verdun Battlefield Memorial. The museum was very well done; with lots of exhibits of period weapons and artillery pieces and ordnance that has been recovered from the battlefield. The site of the battle is generally uninhabitable since there is so much unexploded ordnance still buried in the ground. Millions and millions of rounds of artillery rounds were lobbed over the battlefield during the 10 months that it raged.
After the memorial museum, we went to the “Ossuare de Douaumont,” a giant cemetery dedicated to the 750,000 soldiers that died during the Verdun Campaign. At this particular memorial are 130,000 graves dedicated to the unidentified remains that were gathered from the battlefield. Now this place didn’t have nearly the effect on me that Omaha Beach and the American Memorial Cemetery in Colleville did when we were there in 2000, but it was still very sobering to see the terrain in the area is still to this day this mass of grassy mounds and hollows; almost permanently disfigured from the fighting.Following the tour #17 route, we happened upon yet another monument to the battle; but this time it is an American monument (at Montsec) dedicated to the American soldiers who fought alongside the French during the battles of the “St. Mihiel Salient.” It’s a piece of land granted to the USA by the French in perpetuity and it’s managed by the American Battle Monuments Commission.
By the time we finally got back “home” to our hotel, it was 10:30pm. We decided to just gut it out until we got back before eating, so by the time we did finally roll into our room, we just ordered up some “Croque Monsieurs” for room service.
Tomorrow, the weather in Alsace should be serviceable, so we’re going to head south down into the wine region and the Vosges mountains. I doubt very seriously that we will be in the car nearly as long as we were today.
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