You and who's army

We started the day in an ex mining town and are finishing it in champagne country.

Culture before fizz in this case with a lot of military history en route.

The new Louvre-Lens was well worth a visit. Great audio tours through the permanent collection (although this slightly disappointingly finished finished in 1830 with THE Les Mis picture by Delacroix) and a great Rubens exhibition. The takeaway message seemed to be he copied a lot, was a bit of a diplomatic spy, kept his protégés on a tight rein and preferred artistic license to accuracy when it came to anatomy. Good pictures though ;-)

Our journey then took us past Vimy ridge and then war grave after war grave after memorial. English, French, German,American, Australian, South African. And from war after war after war. Napoleonic, Franco-Prussian, Great War and WWII. And that's only the ones I spotted for definite. There's undoubtedly some Hundreds Year War in there too. It seems to have been a permanent battlefield. And after all of that the most poignant thing we saw all day was a field of poppies. When I'm able to see the photos on a big screen it may replace this Egyptian offering.

Made it to Sézanne in time for the end of the Murray game. And now for dinner.

Vx