Ablain-Saint-Nazaire

From the Canadian Memorial site we drove just 6 miles up the road to the town of Albein St Nazaire. This town holds the graves of the french and each grave is double crossed one grave one side and one the other, thousands and thousands of crosses lead to a Necropolis church in the centre which is also beautifully decorated inside with the names of the dead.
Then just outside the gravesite is the memorial ring, a beautiful ring that looks like it’s floating and it is etched with the names of every person that died in that part of France during WW1 no matter what country they are from, over 650,000 names. It really is an incredible sight.
From there we spotted a little museum just a little way from the car park and we went to go in but the door was locked. Then a man with a leaf blower came around the corner and asked if we wanted to go in, we said yes and then he got some keys, went through a side door and let us in the front door. It cost us €12 to get in €5 each for the museum and then €1 each for the battlefield. After payment he took great pleasure in telling us that everything in the museum was real and had been found or donated by local farmers that had found stuff in there haylofts because that’s where the soldiers would sleep when they weren’t on the front lines. The museum was amazing with the first part taking you through the trenches and telling a story with dummies and animatronics and the second part of items found in the trenches and in the local areas buildings.
The best part of the museum was the battlefield, I initially thought it was a mock battlefield but it wasn’t. They were real trenches with lookout posts sandbags and the barbed wire front lines. All preserved. We felt very lucky and privileged to be there.
This is our last full day in France and it has been a learned day and a very poignant day and it has been a nice end to our travels. We’re only 80 miles from Calais so there will be no mad dash of 200 miles like our usual journeys, we have finished on a calm and packed a lot extra in, today’s war memorials, Paris and Le Mans were all extras not marked out for this trip and each one has been a great experience.
Our last camp spot is in the village of Ablain St Nazarre just down from the graves of the french and the museum and behind a 15th century chapel, it’s a paid airè but the card machine doesn’t work and I’d only pay if it was secure or we had electric and as we don’t have either I’m not that fussed that the card machine doesn’t work so this is our last free camp spot in France.Read more