Menin Gate

We are now in France in Rouen and will explore the city tomorrow.  En route, we stopped off in Ypres to visit the Menin Gate and we were both  amazed to see how it is actually in the town as we'd always thought it was in the middle of nowhere.

The monument honours more than 54,000 Commonwealth servicemen who died in the Ypres Salient during the First World War and have no grave.  Throughout the war, tens of thousands of soldiers passed here on their way to the battlefields.  Many never returned.  Each individual is commemorated by name on one of the 60 stone panels and every evening at 8.00pm throughout the year the Last Post ceremony takes place.  In extras is the roof of the monument where you can see some of the 60 panels full of names.  We were both very moved.