First stop in France was Flanders. The beer in Lille is tough to beat…but the rest of the highlights weren’t so cheerful (though they were powerfully moving).
The WWI memorials at Vimy (to the 11,285 missing Canadian soldiers) and the Menin Gate (to 54,000, which is just a subset, of the unidentified commonwealth soldiers lost in the area) were just the start of the memorials in the region to the horrors of the first world war.
We stayed at Le Cottage in Bruay-la-Buissière…which was OK. Photos here.