June 22, 2024
Touring Verdun
A sobering Day
Today we toured some main Verdun WW1 sites. These sites exist all over northern France, but are particularly concentrated in Verdun. To do a comprehensive visit you would need to stay several more days but since we only had one day I opted for the Rick Steves suggested tour and we spent one day on a bike riding a 22 km tour loop from Verdun up the D112 that covered three main sites, including a very good museum.
The pros:(1) The bike loop we did was very good, with some good climbs at the front end through a forested area, and after we finished looking at the sites we had a fun downhill sweep and then rode along the canal back into town. We missed a paved bike path by accident so did some of our favorite muddy off-road riding, but it wasn’t as bad as the last few days. (2) We got pretty well-educated on WW1 in general and the battle of Verdun in particular.(3) It wasn’t busy so it was easy to immerse yourself without being distracted by other tourists.
The cons: (1) The whole topic was totally depressing. It’s a bit like visiting Mauthausen (concentration camp outside of Melk, Austria) or Dachau,(camp outside of Munich). You feel like you should see it- it’s “good” for you - but you wind up feeling pretty depressed the whole rest of the day and it mentally sticks with you for days. Verdun was a 300 day battle where 300,000 soldiers perished, and nobody can actually articulate what difference it made in terms of the outcome of the war. The end of WWI did not resolve the issues between France and Germany and one generation later that controversial resolution led to another terrible world war. The conditions were appalling in the trenches: mud, rats, unclean water, no sanitation, cold, gas, mortar shells constantly raining down, not to mention that the soldiers in the trenches would probably be dead in a week. The Museum, the Memorial of Verdun, did a very comprehensive presentation of the conditions of the trenches. It’s relatively new, having been inaugurated in 2008.
In addition to the Museum, we also stopped at the Fleury-devant-Douamont exhibit, a short walk through a town in a forest that was totally destroyed in the battle. There were 30 such villages, and many were not rebuilt.
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Finally we stopped at the Ossuaire de Douamont, which was a major monument constructed in the early 1920s, the purpose of which was to collect the bones of unidentified soldiers all over the region and deposit them in one place, along with an adjacent cemetery with row upon row of graves. That exhibit reminded me of the Normandy beaches memorials, peaceful and haunting.
(2) The other negative today was that the weather stunk and we started in drizzling rain and dark skies, which was appropriate for the topic but not that great for riding. Weather improved for the ride back.
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That evening we dined at an Italian place, which was okay, not great, and cheered ourselves up by watching another episode of “Unchained” the Tour de France Netflix series.
Our hotel, Les Jardins du Mess, is probably the nicest place in town but we’re not overly impressed.
Room is nice, and the ac works, but the breakfast is only okay, there is no restaurant and the bike parking wasn’t great, being in the basement and requiring 8 steps up and down. After today’s excursion we just opted to leave our bikes on the hotel’s back deck, because the basement storage was such a hassle. Yes, and all this "convenience" for a mere €5 per bike 😒. Hopefully they will be there when we go down this morning!
Today's ride: 23 km (14 miles)
Total: 1,838 km (1,141 miles)
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