The trip is winding down but neither one of us is in a hurry to declare it over. This morning the conversation was about whether to head north today or tomorrow. Today is Monday and the tourist season is winding down in Belgium so most of the places we wanted to visit are closed. I offered Ton the opportunity to wrap things up and head to Amsterdam, but after a lot of searching she found a nice pub that was open in Ypres so around 11am we were off to Ypres.
While Ton was researching what to do today, I took a quick walk to a British Military Cemetery about 500 yards from our campground. The Dozinghem Military Cemetery has the remains of over 3000 British and Commonwealth soldiers in it from WWI and 77 British soldiers from WWII buried in it. It is another sobering reminder that this beautiful countryside was a killing ground from 1914-1918.
It was a quick drive into Ypres. We passed thru a couple of villages on the way and Ton was struck by how few businesses were open, and how few people were moving about. It’s a dreary day, but part of the dreariness comes from the lack of people about.
But today we were not looking at cities or architecture, we were out to sample good Belgian beer. We love Belgian beer and advocate for it in all of our travels over the more famous German beer. Belgian beer just feels more creative than German beer to us. The tastes are more pronounced and the varieties have more character in our opinion.
We found a very nice, modern pub near the main square and though it was around noon we were the first customers. We ordered two local beers and a light lunch and sat down to enjoy a quiet afternoon.
After a few minutes we were joined by 9 British gentlemen who were touring the battlefields of WWI. We had a nice conversation with them once we figured out they were speaking English, it took our ears a couple of minutes to adjust to their accents. Some British accents are still difficult for us to decipher even after a couple of months of hearing much more British English than American English.
We just hung out in the pub for about 2 hours stretching our beers and snacks out as long as we could. It was another fun but uneventful day. It’s days like this when we don’t feel so much like tourists, but someone who is living over here in a home that happens to move. I think it is a good thing.
After a while we headed back to the campground and spent the rest of the afternoon being lazy and trying to stay warm as the weather has definitely took a turn. The heater will be on tonight.
Tomorrow we have no choice, we will be on the road to Amsterdam to wrap things up for 2025.