Are we there yet? I want an ice cream!

This was the cry emanating from mum from the back seat for the last two days. Unfortunately ice cream in buckets and cones here in France is outrageously expensive compared to Germany and Italy, and I suspect that the UK will be just as expensive. So we will have to endure it for a while yet.

Two days of driving has taken us to Avranches, on the coast of Normandy in the north of France. Our house (which is MASSIVE, with 10 BEDROOMS!) is not quite on the coast, but just a few kilometres inland. On the way, we overnighted in the outer suburbs of Lille, and made longer photo and tourist stops at Ypres in Belgium, and Villers-Bretonneux's famous Australian cemetery in France.

Two new Flickr galleries and one old one with new photos for you to browse:

More driving photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157645709737341/
Ypres: https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157646508406415/
Villers-Bretonneux: https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157646088913377/

We went past the airport again, and there were still some MD-11s from KLM. Gotcha!

One of the last passenger MD-11s

We made a couple of stops while we were still in Holland, firstly in an area surrounded by a wind farm. There was a 'beach' of seaweed, and some geometrically-shaped rocks as well. We also detoured by the Belgian coastline, with some really nice scenery - mum didn't think so though, it wasn't 'old' enough for her:

From the northern coastline

We also stopped off on a highway where we saw a plane taking off after it had rained, creating a spectacular water effect behind it:

Take-off at Oostende

We were, of course, also in the area of France and Belgium that is full of World War I and II memorials. We encountered plenty of smaller ones between the middle of Belgium and our final stop in Avranches, here are a few select choices:

Cemeteries of the World Wars

Our longer stop for today was Ypres, or Ieper, depending on which country you are in. The main attraction here was a ramparts walk, which we didn't have time to do, instead settling on the old town area. We managed to have some dinner before attending the Last Post ceremony at Menin Gate, which is part of the ramparts surrounding the town:

Ypres

Our overnight hotel wasn't very exciting, it was a means to an end. It was in a nice-ish area though, compared to some of the other options we were exploring, which were in industrial areas - no thanks! There's a large car park adjacent to a windmill museum directly across from the hotel.

Our stop for the second day was the Australian memorial near Villers-Bretonneux. It is fairly renowned in Australia for its tower. The most depressing part for me was seeing the multitude of graves for people my age, all given the rank of Private, and shoved onto the front line like cannon fodder. I saw one grave for a Captain, and a couple of Second Lieutenants, but the rest were all either Privates or Corporals:

Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux

The second day had much more driving than the first day. We arrived at Avranches very tired. The next few days will be spent in and around Brittany and Normandy, including the ever-popular Mont St. Michel. Until the next time!