Vimy Ridge

I have had my Canadian war history for the year. Last week I had a Canadian visitor and we went to Ieper. Little did we know that this week was a major week for Canadian history. It was the 95th anniversary of some important battles from WWI. When we were in Ieper, we saw TONS (I estimated a few hundred) of kids with jackets with maples leaves and "Vimy 2012" on them. Later we found out there were 1,000 of them there that day. If we had stayed a bit longer, we could have experienced this.

Monday our first visitor left and our 'surprise' arrived. We knew he was planning to come, but were not sure if it would work out. Nice that it did! Wednesday he woke up with the idea "Where is Vimy Ridge?" After a little research he decided to go visit. However, I decided that it was probably already too late in the day for him to go and that I would not mind joining. We invited some of my cousins who are on spring break.
I so clearly remember the first time I heard the words "Vimy Ridge." We were having a discussion of American patriotism vs Canadian patriotism (is that an oxymoron?). Our Canadian friend brought up this topic and informed us that this particular battle was a turning point of WWII. She said that to the wrong person: my father, the WWII buff.

Later we looked it up (I think this was pre-wiki days) and discovered it was indeed not from WWII, but WWI. Later I saw Anne of Green Gables 3 and that was my reference for the battle.

I am glad I had the opportunity to go visit this memorial area. It was also a nice time to spend with family and friends. Unfortunately the hubby was unable to take the time off to go with us :( But we can go again sometime!

I was very impressed with the memorial park. Everything was very well kept and the FREE public washroom was probably the nicest I have seen in Europe. I mean, it had WARM water. People don't even have that in their home toilets.

What also was great was that the tour, the trenches, parking, memorial, cemeteries and tunnels were all FREE.

The only 'downside' was that I planned to eat sometime, but there was nothing around. Thankfully we all had some snacks, but tip for travelers is to bring your own food or expect to drive 20 minutes to find something.

There are more pics on FB or I can email if you are that anxious to see more. What they want you to leave with is that this battle was important for Canada because it was the first time they 'stood alone.'

To Canadians it is very important, same as the In Flanders' Fields poem. Most Belgians (or none that I know) really know about these things and I only know about them from my Canadian friends. Are you ready for this? I am gonna defend Belgians :P My theory is that they have so much more history and learn so much more about other places, that there is not a big focus on one battle or poem, where as Canada is a much younger country, so they have more time to focus on things like that. OR as I am sure with every country, you focus first on your country, rather than others.