The four stoogies visit France!

[Grumpy]

MikeC, AlanC, Marty64 and myself decided to pop over to northern France last weekend. The plan was to visit some of the Somme battlefields, museums, places of interest. Also to drink beer, and relax.
Mike and myself travelled down on Thursday, staying overnight in Ashford so as to catch an early eurotunnel train plus meet up with the guys.

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British and French customs where negotiated, then on to the train we went.
Off on our adventure for a long weekend. We came back in Monday.
Once the glitch in my sat nav was rectified, we headed to a national France memorial,
Ablain St-Nazaire French Military Cemetery “Notre Dame de Lorette”, France. Stopping for a road site lunch en-route.

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The area was the site of a major battle to control the region. Some of the trenches still remain as part of a museum.

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The next stop was our hotel for the weekend.

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We based ourselves in the town of Peronne.
By the time we unloaded the bikes and booked into the hotel, we where in need of food and drink.

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After quite of few sherbet and a meal, we hit the sack.
We woke up on Saturday to the local market in full swing.

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[Grumpy]

Peronne has an interesting WW1 museum housed in the local castle,

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After lunch, we headed out to explore the Somme area, dropping into Thiepval Memorial to the Missing.
The Memorial has inscribed on its pillars the names of the 72,000 men from the commonwealth who died in the Somme but have no known grave.

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The area is littered with cemeteries, memorials and battlefield remains.
We stopped at a few taking in the scale of the actions around us.

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We had a guest arriving that night plus the covid tests to perform, so headed back to the hotel late pm.

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Sven from Belgium popped down for a beer and meal, the joined us on Sunday as we headed out to our next spot.

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Next door to the tank museum is a cwgc cemetery where Alan's great uncle is buried, where we paid our respects.

Once we said goodbye to Sven, we explored the area, then headed to The South African memorial at Delville Wood.
The Memorial remembers the heavy losses sustained by the South African Brigade of the 9th Scottish Division from 14 to 20 July 1916. Out of over 3,000 men only 29 officers and 731 other ranks returned.

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It was time to head back to Peronne and our last night. Which involved beer and food!

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Monday we headed back to Calais for our train home. Taking in Vimy Ridge on the way.

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We set the nav for cross country, headed for Calais, taking lunch on the way.

The weather in France was great, sunshine everyday.
A cracking weekend was had by all of us.

Thanks for posting the memories of last weekend James, a truly memorable adventure,a thought provoking trip mixed with R&R and great company.

Thanks to Alan C and Mart 64 for making it so enjoyable and to yourself for arranging.

A few more memories to add,

5C536404-E629-4B8E-8337-6DDE99A3D0DF by Mike OConnor, on Flickr

F94F02C4-722F-45CD-83C7-A20C0E73510C by Mike OConnor, on Flickr

8C352EA6-5361-473A-A5C2-FC91E703A479 by Mike OConnor, on Flickr

889AD957-4950-4499-A0D6-65E3D7183EC4 by Mike OConnor, on Flickr

D874E34A-7BEF-4C20-BAE8-375EEF7A759B by Mike OConnor, on Flickr

E5B121A0-23B1-4AD5-AD31-077915CE4C05 by Mike OConnor, on Flickr