Name: A tour with Robin around Flanders Fields.
Age: One Saturday.
Location: Flanders Fields, West Vlaanderen, Belgium.
Appearance
See the social media accounts of @UglyBelgianHouses.
When was departure time?
We were with ex-US military Robin, so we say SP (Start Point) and not departure time, please. SP was 0900.
Don’t mention the war.
Whoops, you just did. Also – wrong war.
In Flanders Fields, the poppies blow.
Potato flowers too.
Was it all quiet on the Western Front?
OK buddy, this is getting tired now. No, it emphatically wasn’t quiet on the drive to the Western Front. We played US marching tunes (thanks Robin), In Flanders Fields by some wholesome boy choir and the Last Post on repeat.
Car to where precisely?
Ypres/Ieper/Wipers/not leper: previously bombed, but since reconstructed to look as it did before bombardment. The Menin Gate lists the names of missing Commonwealth soldiers, including e.g. Sturdy R. and Topple W. H. from the 16th Lancers; Bhagat Singh and Sundar Singh from the 47th Sikhs; and Love, H. R. from Princess Patricia’s C. L. I. They still play the Last Post under the gate every evening.
Can you trust Google maps to find German bunkers?
Absolutely not.
Gee, all that war stuff sounds heavy. How did you cope?
Only the best beer in the world at St Sixtus Abbey could revitalise us – and the many local weekenders too, it turned out.
Ooh, what do the locals do on the weekend?
Cycle. Drink beer. Cycle more. Admire the peculiarities of modern Belgian architecture (see above). Cycle. Sport alarming cycling outfits.
So… in Flanders Fields, the bizarre Belgian houses blow?
Yes! And cycling crotches bulge.
So… Flanders Fields blows?
No.
Do say:
"That object definitely looks like a German bunker!"
Don’t say:
"Of course they built a gormless pub with no windows and an Astro Lab planetarium at this site of resounding historical importance."
The Belgian Waffle is a satirical column.
It's not all trenches and tombs in West Flanders. But there are lots of those too. Credit: Belga
