Ieper

We got a lie in today - our hotel is on the Grote Markt of Ypres which was also where the start line was. We made the start line in time to hear the starting pistol going off for the first time. The route began by going through the Menin Gate, up onto the city ramparts, through a tunnel and over a bridge. Being so early however meant we were in quite a crowd, so all these narrow points became little bottlenecks, although they moved quite quickly. Again the walk took us past se CWGC sites we'd not visited before. Tuileries was particularly unusual as it contains only 26 graves, 16 of which were unidentified, but memorials to another 71 soldiers whose graves here were destroyed. The walk today was again a bit more hilly than yesterday but only in comparison to the relatively flat landscape of Belgium - it still wasn't too strenuous! We did all 16km today without stopping, so once we'd collected our medals for completing all 64km, we went for a beer, and then a shower, before getting back to the Menin Gate for the Last Post Ceremony at 3.30pm, and subsequent military parade. We finished the afternoon at the In Flanders Field Museum which is superb. It has loads of new exhibits from last time we visited and we needed more than the two hours we had to explore it properly.

Beer Index (Ypres) - €7.40/0.5lRead more