Ypres

On the centennial year of the beginning of World War One, I visited the small Belgian town of Ypres, or Ieper as its Dutch name is. I didn’t actually plan this, but my Belgium trip was in 2014 and I didn’t feel I could go to the country without visiting Ypres. After all, it’s a name that was prevalent throughout my primary and secondary school history classes, not to mention college. It’s a name synonymous with destruction and fortitude, a potent symbol of that war. I know my family has at least one relative buried out there, and I’m sure most do too.

So, because my initial Google search didn’t yield any hostels in the town and I was too lazy and/or impatient to go beyond that search, I found a lovely B&B nearby. I say nearby. It was a fifteen minute drive but a two and half hour walk, and because I have a potent fear of being any trouble I decided to take the walking option. You know what? I refuse to see that as an inconvenience caused by social anxiety, I enjoyed that walk! It was a lovely walk with incredible panoramic views of the flat farmland, a stroll through the middle of nowhere. Besides, it seemed appropriate somehow. Poor little me trekking a mere two and half hour walk compared to what countless soldiers went through in that same area a hundred years ago.

I did fall in a ditch on the way back though. Also saw the road death of an innocent rat, encouraged a furry caterpillar on its intrepid journey across the road, and endured walking past a heavy metal concert. The route was mostly very long, very straight roads that weaved down into little country lanes. The concert blocked my way, hence the ditch as I had to scramble across it to get around. But I made it. I walked into Ypres, visited the Menin Gate and was struck by how many names are carved into the white marble. I’m from Shropshire, and I’ve only just realised how strange it is that I can find a list of soldiers from my county’s regiment on a monument in Belgium. It just goes to show how massive World War I, how far it reached into so many lives. How many lives it destroyed.

I went around the museum, was pleased to find that it was an honest and solemn retelling of the battles that happened both in Ypres and throughout the war in general. Commemoration is more appropriate than celebration, I think. The museum did that nicely, thanking the soldiers without glorifying what they went through. I had a lot to think about on my way back to the B&B, even as I fell down the ditch. I arrived back, covered in mud and nettle stings, more knowledgeable, bigger and better informed then when I left.

A long walk it may have been, but no journey has changed me as much before or since. I’m glad I didn’t take an easy taxi into town, but went through just little bit of hardship to witness something that put it into perspective.