Remembrance blurred into history

We headed to visit Ieper (Ypres) and the surrounding World War One sites today as our last day in Belgium. It was a great day and really quite a humbling experience.

Ieper itself is a beautiful little city and I can barely imagine it reduced to rubble during the First World War. It's very pretty and we also went to the Menin Gate which was huge and I couldn't believe how many names there were...I also found a 'J. Keating' on the wall. I wonder if I am at all related to any of the Keating's which were on the wall. These are the times where I wish I knew more about my ancestry.

After we went to Menin Gate we had a hot chocolate in a cafe and then drove to Passchendaele Museum which is all about the battle there in 1917 and it gives you a dugout experience too which is interesting. I couldn't live in a trench though!

We wanted to visit Polygon Wood Cemetery before Tyne Cot but there was some Belgian men fixing some electricity wires so we couldn't get passed and so drove to Tyne Cot. On first impressions it didn't seem so big from the walls but once I started to walk to the front of the cemetery I was gobsmacked! It is huge. It was a very humbling experience.

I took a lot of photos today so found it extremely difficult to choose a photo today but this is a photo from the top of the memorial in the cemetery looking back towards the entrance and also the land beyond, which is the land they were fighting for. I applied a miniature toy effect (or something similar) to it with some in camera editing which I've never used before and really like the effect.

I chose the title (with the help of my dad) because it seems that all of the men who died during the First World War are being blurred into the history of our world and becoming part of the land. It's also because of how many unknown soldiers there were and we will never know there story to piece together what happened. I hope it makes sense to you all too.