The road out of Creully this morning was tenuous at best, but there were several of us, and we've learned that in crazy weather, there's safety in numbers. By the time we hit the N1, the roads were wet but no longer slippery, and we headed north toward Vimy, several hours drive away. The French are not good with snow. I've said that before. 2 days after the blizzard, the main highway north, the A1, is still clogged with heavy trucks. Knowing that, we took a small sideroad, the N25, out of Amiens toward Arras and Vimy. It was another version of the country roads where we encountered so many difficulties on the way south on Monday. The remnants of their road-covering snow drifts were all on the side of the road, fortunately, and we made our way to Vimy without undue distress.
It's an amazing sight. The original monument was constructed in 1936, and while there was fighting in the area during WWII, the monument was untouched. In recent history, the Canadian government freshened it up, but this is the original design. Down the road, behind the remains of the trenches and still unexploded land mines (!!!), is a wonderful Canadian museum, complete with a museum-quality trench. Canadian miners were brought over to create the tunnel system. Network "Grange" was cleaned up and made tourist-worthy, while the other 13 tunnels were left to decay. Before the battle at Vimy Ridge on April 9, 1917, the Canadian soldiers spent 6 months training about trench warfare. On Easter Monday, the soldiers stood (!) silently (!) for 36 hours, in the tunnels before being given the order to advance. They thought there were German trenches in the area, and had to be very quiet for fear the Germans would hear them in their tunnels.
Re-capturing Vimy Ridge was a definitive Canadian victory. Being there made me proud to be Canadian.
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