Somme

Pictures are here.

In August of last year I took a short tour of Norther France with the purpose of seeing the medieval battle fields of Agincourt and Crecy.   I needed to overnight in France to visit both sites in a single day and I choose a hotel just north of Amiens in the Somme region.   I was able to spend the morning visiting a few sites around the Somme and see some of of the battle fields including the Lochnager mine crater.  

Lochnager, is a massive scar on a farm field that was created by tunneling beneath enemy lines, packing said tunnels with explosive and setting it off as a  means of breaking the bitter deadlock of trench warfare.

This country is dotted with dozens upon dozens of commonwealth cemeteries which speak the deadly nature of the "war to end all wars".  

In the evening I caught some great pictures of the Somme in the waining light and stumbled across Bray-sur-Somme which was in the throws of celebrating their liberation by American Forces on September 1 1944.  The town was covered in American flags and a couple dozen people in 1940's era clothing, along with a bunch of "American GI's" where dancing in the streets.   At midnight, there where fireworks, the a group of re-enactoers rolled into town on restored Willy's jeeps.   Strange what you stumble upon in france.  No light for photos for this, so use your imagination.

Included in the strangeness was a lone tower on the road between Amiens and Agincourt.