Life in Weyers Cave

Yesterday we went to Iepers (or Ypres). Even though I thought I was prepared from going last year, I still ended up crying -- a lot! Half a million people died within ten kilometers of Iepers during World War I. Early in the war, the military sent the civilians out and when the civilians returned after the war, they found their homes by counting the piles of rubble. The city was totally leveled. Chlorine and mustard gas were used for the first time. Weapons of mass destruction. The guide is a local history teacher and was very good. I asked him why World War I even started. Deep down, not just the fact that someone shot the archduke. He said it was over economics. The Germans wanted a bigger piece of the pie. The first explanation that ever made sense, but not in hindsight. It is amazing how most wars are fought over economic power. As I stood by the mass grave of 30,000 German soldiers, including family names I recognize from my genealogy, an incredible sense of sorrow o...

Miniature trench canon and other stuff they have found in the ground from World War I . . .  

World War I trench. 

These holes in the ground are from bombs. They are right beside the trenches.  

Students study trenches from World War I. People died as much from disease as from the bullets. What an awful existence. 

Squirrels playing cards.  

Guess we are a picture taking family.  

Brugge is the city of swans. 

A processional of old cars. Bride and groom were in the first car and members of the wedding party were in the others.  

Modern art shop - with shoes and boots all over the front of the building.  

This was in an antique shop window in Damme. Yes, she is real! 

Part of the hospital museum in Damme. It cost $2 and we had an English guidebook with laminated pages, so it was well worth it.  

So glad I don't have to try to play this music!!!! 

200 year old alto recorder. 

David and Dianna climbed 210 steps to the top. 

Strange statue to have in the backyard of the old church in Damme. (Look at this close up) 

Guess I could come up with all kinds of jokes about this town's name. It is a very small town five miles from Brugge, but it is on David's shirt so we had to see it. So this morning, we took the train, then the bus to Damme. Ten minutes later, we had seen it. We had a sandwich at a sandwich shop, then rented bikes for an hour. The L-o-n-g-e-s-t hour of my life! Who says you never forget how to ride a bike? My bike was definitely possessed. First, the seat kept flopping around, then David got it to stay still, but it was too high, the handlebars didn't point in the same direction as the wheel, and the streets were made of rough bricks which made it harder to keep upright. There were people and bikes and poles and cars and trucks everywhere. And I seem to have completely lost all sense of balance in the last 20 years. Other than that, we had a wonderful time. There was a sweet little church we toured. David and Dianna went to the top of a tower build in the 1300s...

Fun activity for the kids. You start at panel one, read the story, make a decision to answer the question at the end (are you going to raise corn or potatoes?), then find the panel indicated according to your answer to the question. Each student gets his own interactive story.  

What could possibly be more fun than a pile of mud! 

Keep your shoes off the furniture! With the family all living in the same room, the curtains around the room gave the parents the only privacy they could have.  

They had just had a wedding in the chapel in Bokrijk, parts of which date back to before 1000 AD. 

Prettiest girl in Brugges.  

Every room had at least one religious statue in a place of prominence. There is a glass case on the sideboard witha a Virgin Mary and Rosary beads hanging on the wall. Bokrijk 

Dianna struggles with the buckets in Bokrijk 

Brugges Cloth Tower. Many of our students went up the 366 steps to the top.  

I would LOVE to live here. Yes, Brugges is this peaceful and beautiful.  

Brugges Lake of Love.