Flanders Fields 3 - Ypres and Menin Gate

This is the Lille Gate entrance into Ypres - which in Dutch speaking Belgium is pronounced, Eper. The town was under constant attack during the First World War and was more or less completely destroyed.

Just inside the Lille Gate is a Commonwealth War Cemetery. One of the headstones in the cemetery has the poignant inscription - 'He said farewell. We did not think it would be forever.'

This is a photo taken in 1918 of the Cloth Hall, located in the centre of the town.

This is a photo of the Cloth Hall we took during our visit. After the war they decided to rebuild Ypres exactly as it was, using stone recovered from all the debris. Looking at the buildings today it is hard to believe that they were built in the 1920s.  However, if you look very closely you can sometimes see that the foundation stones are different from those used elsewhere in the building.

The other entrance into Ypres is the now famous Menin Gate. Every Australian soldier who served on the Western Front marched along this road although the actual gate you can see in the photo wasn't built until 1927.

The new Menin Gate is a Memorial to the Missing and honours more than 55,000 soldiers, including 6,000 Australians, who died defending Ypres but whose bodies have never been identified or found. All their names are inscribed on the walls inside the gate. The carved limestone lions which sat outside the original gate are now at the entrance to the Australian War Memorial. They were donated by the people of Ypres to recognise Australia's role in defending the town and surrounding area.

At 8.00 pm every evening the traffic is halted outside the Menin Gate and buglers from the local Fire Brigade play the last post in a commemorative ceremony. Except for a period of German occupation during the Second World War, the ceremony has taken place each night since July 1928. It was a very moving experience and not to be missed if you get the chance. There would easily be three or four hundred people there every night.

The night we visited a school group from England laid a wreath during the ceremony and had their photo taken with the buglers.

Australians (and the British) are held in high regard in Flanders. Perhaps it was because it was so close to Armistice Day and we were wearing our red poppies but everywhere we went people gave us a smile or a wave. We felt quite at home in Belgium!