Verdun

This camp was so relaxing we stayed an extra night. Truth is, the old back needs a bit of a rest.

  There must be a smelting plant upstream as I saw several loads of scrap metal going past ,and a couple of barge loads of reinforcing steel going the other way.

Toul is another walled town , right on the Moselle . Not as interesting to these old dears though ,as the clothes in the market. ( pricey I thought )

We're making our way north to Verdun and through some of the most fought over land in France. By stopping at the military cemetery's we passed, we could read a brief history of the front in that area. 

The Americans came into the war when things were at a bit of a stalemate, and made a crucial impact by taking the Saint Mihiel Salient. 350,000 of them and 117,000 French.The Armistice was signed 2 months later so it must have made the difference.

  This memorial is on Montsec and the cemetery is near by. Beautifully managed by the American war graves commission .

Verdun is a beautiful town with a lovely port and an amazing underground citadel  . We went through a museum on a little train inside its maze of passages. Nice and cool too as its 37 degrees outside.

The battle for Verdun lasted 300 days at a cost of 700,000 casualties from both sides. It's a wonderful place to visit, as you can drive along the front line from fort to fort amongst the trenchs and the barbed wire. 

  It's just been left for all to see, even the remains of a village that was destroyed by the bombing .

The Ossuaire memorial looks down on a graveyard of 15,000 Frenchmen ,but was built to house the bones of 130,000 from both sides. A movie theatre underneath tells the story of the war very well.

 We particularly liked the rose bush on each grave.

See,  rose and rose of them

   Found a lovely campsite not far along the road to Metz. It's on a farm ,with a fishing lake . Only 10 euros and you can try to catch a carp for only 2 euros .