During our trip to France in August, we visited quite a few World War 1 sites while in North East France. One of those places was the Canadian Museum at Vimy Ridge.
The setup up at Vimy is quite impressive. You can visit the museum, some reconstructed trenches and also some underground tunnels used during World War One. These areas are actually under Canadian control, because France gifted the land around Vimy to Canada as a thank you for their efforts during the war.
A lot of the land has been preserved the best it can, and you can clearly see the old craters and the like within the woods surrounding the area. The pic above came out quite lovely and I like the calm colour of the grass in the trees.
You can even see some huge craters, where tunnels were dug under the ground and set with explosives.
It was quite interesting seeing the trenches. These are reconstructed, and obviously a lot drier, etc than they would have been in reality - but it was quite odd to be able to walk through them - fairly eerie to be honest. The thing that really amazed me was that the positions of the Canadian and German trenches were marked in their original locations, and some of the observation posts were very close to each other - around 20-30 yards ! And it was amazing to think that the battle lines stayed like that for years - that really brought home how futile it really was.
We were also able to take a free guided tour of the tunnels built by the Canadians. We were the only people in the group which meant we got a personal tour. The tour guide was a Canadian student posted in France on a work placement, and she really knew her stuff. The tunnels have been made safe for tourists, but they still offered an amazing glimpse back at the conditions, and these were the original Canadian tunnels used during the war.
A lot of the land was still cordoned off with warning signs as there are still uncleared munitions which was quite hard to believe.
The pic above shows one of the reconstructed observation posts (on the left).
Canada really has done a great job in setting up the museum and the whole area in order to tell the story, which should not be forgotten. The museum was quite large and contained stories about individuals who fought in the war which was really interesting.
It was an impressive place to explore and learn about the war. It really did help to tell the story of the suffering on both sides and the lot of the everyday soldier, all of whom were dealing with absolutely atrocious conditions. Its the type of place that you would hope teaches us never to go to war again, but sadly its not the case.
It was well worth the visit - and entirely free. Very educational. I wouldnt hesitate to go back and visit the site again.
