Metz from Verdun, in the rain. AND French Restaurant review # 1 Chez Monique

Should have been a one hour ten minute trip, tops, even considering we opted to take back roads again eschewing the toll road. Took us four hours. FOUR hours. The road was in good condition, traffic light, rain light, scenery, just scenery like we have seen before (actually fewer towns).

Did start to pass monuments. So we stopped. I had to get out and read 'em. They were in German. I read even less German than I do French.

German monument — the Iron Cross on top helps too.

French if I remember right, but could have been German, there were a lot of German monuments along the road here. The dates were all either 1870 or 1871, so these were obviously commenting the Franco- Prussian War of that time. I remembered little of that war other than there was one.  

As we left Verdun without breakfast we were looking for food and found it with help from our on-board magic Never Lost find near restaurant in Fresnes-en-Woevere.  That's it, on the left side of the building — with the white door.  Chez Monique                                   

The place was crowded, a few of the customers spoke enough English to help us and all of us had a grand time. The guy to Patt's right did have fun and had a great personality.  He had us greet an old guy who came in by name. It was well received by the whole place.

 The ham and cheese sandwich was very good and a real - almost big cup of coffee good too.

Monique the Chez Monique on the sign outside was a little slow afoot and with the calculator, but enjoyed having us even if she at first thought we were German or Allemande. That is German in French. I corrected her.  

Still raining when we left about an hour later. Actually bought a movie  there - DVD of a movie about the town that the big guy in the photo produced or filmed/directed. The movie is set in the town and is about what happened in 1940 during the German occupation. Several of the people we were having coffee with were in the movie. They were pleased we bought one of the DVDs. I think they are selling slowly.  I will enter it in a foreign film festival or something. We will watch it.

In Gravelotte, we stopped at a rather large new museum about the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. There were exhibits of material and uniforms left from combatants of the battles that were fought in the area. There were several monitors in the museum with movies about why the war was fought, the battles, the outcome, etc - very well done. This was a bitterly fought war between France and Germany as Germany was becoming more powerful and unifying as a nation. 

German leadership saw the Alsace and Lorraine region of France as belonging to Germany and went to war with France to secure the region.  France was not very strong as it was changing governments and though the armies fought fiercely with very high numbers of casualties, over the two years in a number of engagements, the Germans eventually won and occupied this part of France as German States until after World War 1.  

We eventually got to Metz, a beautiful old city with old city gate and bridges and streets.

and just a nice place to visit.

Will get around to posting about our visit to Verdun later.

cross country again, to the east, from Chateau-Thierry through Epernay, Montmiral, and on to Verdun

So back to traveling again. A couple of hours is all, which is typical for us, we have not had a travel day yet take over four hours and that day we were seriously lost. Most are about two. So this day, Chateau-Thierry to Verdun about a two hour drive —  Google maps will not draw our trip, none of the map drawing programs draw our trips. We go a more straight line than those programs draw and we do not use the big roads or we do a bit of a jog north or south then straight. And we do try to avoid a big town, though we do get a beltline or two around a town.

This trip we did drive through Epernay, not one of your bigger towns, though Epernay will show up on a map as it is more than a cross roads. Montmiral is a crossroads and if you add a hyphen and a historical marker you have yourself a Napoleon victory site over the Prussians in 1814.  Found the marker quite by accident, just there by the side of the road, had to back up, but no one was back there so that part was easy.

There it is - February 11, 1814. Two hundred and two years ago and there was no bicentennial celebration that I was aware of. According to the historical marker on the other side of the road, this victory illustrated Napoleon's military genius and also his ability to lead the French people as this came just two years after his retreat from Russia.

There was another marker in the crossroad in the actual town of Montmirail. Four buildings and a crossroads with another marker with about half dozen cannon. The town must had had some pull to get their own monument when the actual battlefield site was a couple of miles to the west!

Montmirial also has sign posts. We stayed on D933 for a good distance, also D22.

Forget just which of the two roads we were on when we came upon this WWI French Cemetery the Dombasle en Argonne.  It just appeared as we were driving along the back roads up against the trees.  The wind was quite strong as it has been this past week and was whipping the flag flying over the site.

And looking back over the farm land at our car and the road over which we had come and obviously the land over which these soldiers fought and died in some 100 years ago. In this part of France you are never far from a reminder of the "Great War".

It is not all country-side as noted from above crossroads with sign post. We even found a town with a full fledged restaurant that was OPEN. These places are present but open only select hours of the day --who knew? We stopped and went in ready for something to eat. Well a couple of guys are drinking beer in the bar side of Clermont en Argonne's only dining establishment and an elderly couple are eating lunch in the dining room, three guys also eating, and whoop-dee-do, in come strangers. Yeup, that would be us'uns.  

Our little spoken French, the waiter/cook/cashier/manager 's little spoken English means we are on our own. I selected— from the menu, plate de jour and coffee. Pleasantly surprised, it turned out to be quite good. Some kind of pork chop, potatoes and peas. Patt chose something else, it turned out to be a trip to some kind of a salad and cold cuts bar. She was somewhat unpleasantly surprised. The coffee came in a thimble - we were not surprised. We have had two sip coffee before.  

Citizens of Clermont seemed glad to have us in town.  We were glad to be there.  

Chateau-Thierry — and American Memorials

Left Reims, backtracking a bit, to Chateau-Thierry to re-enter the battlefield scene once again. There is a pattern here.  pres - then Bruges, Somme- then Reims, now it is on to Chateau-Thierry and Verdun - then Metz, Strasbourg. The battlefield and memorials are heavy and are more than a bit introspective and despite the history and education and such, the personal nature of what we see and the terrible loss associated with the numbers it just gets to be a lot, but we are on a quest and near the end.  

But first to get there. Leaving Reims, as is custom, we said no on the GPS to toll roads and interstates and took the back roads, note below from the ridge top we got the view of where we had been, on the road between Fismes and Beugneux or two other similar towns, I can't remember, the northern France countryside is beautiful.

We have had a lot of overcast sky of late but occasionally the sun broke through lighting up a field.

crossed the same rail line a few times too.  

and once turned off the main road just to drive through town into one of the side streets to go by the church. It was one way in and back.

Riding through a forest we saw a sign saying what looked like castle ruins, backed up, turned down the dirt road and, lookout, right there was an old castle on a pile of granite surrounded by a dry moat.

we had come up on the back side of the old castle that was attached to a rather fancy hotel the Chateau de Fere. It was still cool. The castle, not so much the hotel. You can see it was windy on the hilltop.

Finding this monument to the men of the Alabama National Guard that was called into the 42nd Division - Rainbow Division - of the Army was cool. An Alabamian put up this monument of a soldier carrying a dead comrade off the field of battle at Croix Rouge Farm, the remnants of the farm structures are in the background.  

This was the site of a fierce fight between this unit of the 42nd Division and Germans who were in a line here. Apparently the site is relatively unchanged. The tree line is where it was then, the field is still farmed and it is far from any activity of any kind. We were by ourselves and not a single vehicle passed the site while we were there either.

American Forces participated with the French Army in holding off the German spring offensive of 1918 in this sector. Their timely and effective participation in French history is widely recognized.

A couple of miles away on another lonely quiet road near the small town of Oulchy-le-Chateau on top of a ridge known as Butte Claimant this huge carving stands out. It is a stone carving of seven soldiers of French, English, Italian and American nationalities, and of various branches of service, and of one young man rising into the sky, free of any identification.

This may have been one of my favorite of all the statutes and art works about the war that we have seen on this trip.  It is called Les Fantomes (the ghosts) by Polish sculptor, Paul Landowski. The soldiers, young and old, airmen, infantry, artillery, all have their eyes closed in death and their feet are not visible as they are shown rooted in the ground— the naked youth rising is free of the earth and the heavy accoutrements of war.

The sculpture looks out over the plain toward the east from which the recent of France's aggressors have come. At the bottom of the hill is a statue of a woman representing France. It is a powerful statement on the sacrifice required of making war. 

Below is the road leading to the sculpture — leading away looks the exact same.  The woman sitting beside the car was the person beside the statute in the first photo and is a student studying this particular piece of art. She was very interesting to talk with and seemed to enjoy our company. In the previous hour she said one other car had come by, stopped and someone got out, read the information tablet at the bottom of the hill and rode on. That was it. She was still there when we left. The site was one of the "high water marks" of the German spring offensive of 1918, which failure set up the allies final push to end the war.

Not far away is a large American Cemetery - L'Oise-Aisne - with a large memorial. This cemetery primarily contains graves of members of the 1st Division, the 42nd and 29th Divisions. The 42nd, or Rainbow Division, was especially heroic and contributed some acts of fierce fighting and perseverance that earned the division a great amount of praise. They also suffered severe casualties.  One of whom was the poet Joyce Kilmer, author of 'Trees', which was published in 1914.

Inside the above memorial is one of the walls with names of those unknown and unrecovered dead.  

There were several thousand grave markers here. American dead, while significant numbers did not compare to the totals of the French, English, or German simply due to the numbers of soldiers involved.

The contribution by American forces while not so large was certainly timely and well received and made some major contributions to significant operations to help end the war.  This memorial is to French / American cooperation in the war. It is huge and prominent on top of a hill overlooking a plain.

Nearby in Belleau Wood is another cemetery that is largely Marine. We were there as the day was winding down and the sky was especially pretty. This is the view from the hill behind the memorial carillon.

We were the last people there for the day and as we were preparing to leave we heard the Marine Corps hymn from the carillon followed by other songs. That was nice.

We were talking with the manager of the cemetery and he asked if I would help take down the flag.  "Of course", said I.  So I did, first time since Boy Scouts oh so many many years ago. I had not forgotten how to do this either. Came out pretty close to real good.

Then the carillon played taps. Whew, time to go now.

We did go up to the top of the hill into the forest where the Marine monument and some gear still stand where the Marines in the 1918 summer offensive helped take the St Michael salient.  

That's Patt outside the door of out 1600's bed/breakfast/hotel Les Jardin de Fables in Chateau-Thierry.  We were on the 3rd floor, creaky circular steps, roof beams about 10 X 10, did have modern shower, twin beds, toilet in next room, would definitely stay again even though breakfast only fair.  (also not a lot of choices).

View from bedroom window, street leads to main city square, hence excellent location, access to great dining, parking, city ramparts, . . .

Reims, second post, walking, dining and tasting chomppain.

Be sure to eat here when you are in Reims, it is on the main pedestrian walkway and out-a-sight good. Waitress has been to Fayetteville of all places (Fayett-Villa, she called it). Her grandmother's sister married an American soldier and her family went to the US once when she was young to visit.  

As the night is young/early for us, we start dinner early — but stay late. Took above photo on way out the door — and it is helpful that the Hotel du Nord, green lights across the way, is our hotel. Not far to walk after a bottle of wine.

Ate Moroccan dinner at this place one evening too, also very good. Surprise, they had wine, but no decaf coffee.

But an awesome dessert plate.  

enjoying a cup?-a-joe

and we did some serious walking around town to get to the various museums and sights.

and the streets were fun to walk

and one stop was all fun

and 6-7-8 were all ours too

We also took a short tour of a champagne house. The tour was of an old underground chalk mine that was used to store the champagne and we saw how it used to be made and a movie on how it is now being done.  

Our guide said chomp-pain in two distinct word and graayp when referring to champagne and grape.  We did get a champagne tasting lesson. Still not a fan of chomp-pain, not even the premium as Patt and I paid extra for the premium tasting too.