Verdun et j'ai eu une conversation en Francais

It is three days since wrote. It has been a busy time with a lot of driving being done.  Today I arrived in Paris and dropped the car off at Gare de l’est.   That was some challenge but passed with almost flying colours; more about that later.

The stay at the Chambre d’hote has been one of the highlights of my visit if not the highlight.  The first evening I was there I was uncertain about whether I would stay more than one night but Francoise suggested that what I thought I would be able to do in one day would be impossible and suggested that I think about doing Verdun one day and Nancy the next.  Overnight I made the decision to stay.  I had breakfast with them and both Francoise and Marie-Jo talked to me in French given that only Francoise had any English and that was not much.  I stumbled along but enough to make myself understood and they were very patient.  After telling that I would stay another night I also asked if they would do dinner.  At first there was a bit of reluctance and then there was yes we would do it.

Porte de Verdun

The little village I stayed is next to  Pont a Mousson.  The drive to Verdun around an hour as it was about 70kms from the village.  Verdun is a small town near where there was major bloodshed during WW1.  For the French it is like our Gallopoli or the Somme.  I had not realised in such a powerful way how much the French had also been affected.  Around that area there are villages that were wiped from the face of the earth.  Whole forests destroyed and hundreds of thousands of lives lost. 

Verdun has a nice river running through it which I walked around.  There are many reminders of the battle that raged for two to three years.  There is the underground citadel which was actually designed by the Vaudan in the 17^th century.  It was used as a place to store weapons, rest men and others.  There was a bakery in it, and as I recall even a hospital.  There is a 30 minute ride in an electric car with commentary which is done really well. It was very cold in the citadel, it stays around 7°C constantly. 

I then went wandering around the area to the north of the town where all the fighting took place.  I visited where a village used to be: where the street used to be is marked out.  The signs of war despite all the forest are still there with the craters from the shelling still evident.  One monument I visited was amazing.  During the fighting a group of soldiers was lost and they were just presumed to have been blown to bits or something.  Later the evidence of them was found when a line of bayonet tips was seen in poking out of the earth. They had been buried alive by mud as a result of the shelling.  Instead of digging them out they left where they were and there is a sort of mausoleum over them. 

I also went into an old fort, the major one in that area and which has not been preserved.  It was cold, damp and eerie to say the least. 

The madness of us humans who will put others to suffering like those men, our ancestors went through.  European history is littered with these wars and battles that were fought over land I suppose.  It was almost as if for a good part of our short existence we have done mostly fight.  I don’t know enough about history but it does seem to me the people make the decisions are rarely the ones who get down and dirty in the mud and filth.

Fromage et Francois et Marie-Jo

That evening I had a wonderful meal with Francois and Marie-Jo.  The food was really wonderful and just what I really wanted.  An aperitif, a fresh salad from her garden, guinea fowl for the main, cheese to finish with the wine (five types and all were wonderful) and finally a rhubarb tart.  We had a really nice wine that I had bought (Sarget de Gruaud Larose 2008) that opened out to be a great wine.  We talked in French the whole evening, with both us grabbing a dictionary to help explain things each way.  There was laughter and I also learnt a little about each of them. 

I could not have done that 18 months ago when I last came to France.  My language is still not great but I can now get around and the words are finally starting separate out rather than being an incomprehensible melange. I can read things and quickly understand what they mean.  So perhaps the effort is paying off.  I always do better if I have to practice something in reality.  I still mess up my tenses and grammar but Marie-Jo and Francois weren’t bothered and corrected me when I had got it wrong.