Verdun plus old books.

Purples and yellows plus all imaginable shades of green and brown. An old fashioned meadow complete with it's myriad insect and in particular, butterfly life. Tall big leafed green plants with pools of water from early morning mist nestled in their cup like leaf and stem intersections. Frogs and toads leaping and splashing out of harms way as soon as I, or Tanya, appear in their acute sphere of vision as we walked down by the drainage ditch. White clouds moving firmly across the sky allowing frequent sun warming of body and land

"Heaven". I think to myself.

Then, as I raise my eyes to the 'Butte de Montsec' on the hill above the little village of 'Montsec' here on the edge of 'Lac de Madine' I am reminded and I reflect.

98 years and 2 months ago in this very same place where I am experiencing Heaven, man was acting out, with his latest technology, and in vicious and brutal reality, 'Dantes Inferno'. The American war memorial, 'Butte de Montsec', is on a strategic hill that between March 12 & 16 in the year 1916 saw not only thousands of humans sacrificed but also enormous land, village, plant and forest sacrifice too.

We are completely alone here below the village of Montsec on a small forest track on the edge of this beautiful meadow. I've granted myself time today to stop, slow down, reflect and meditate on this very paradox of beauty and horror. Of how I can only enjoy such peace, beauty, silence and completeness if I remember and honour always the full and rushing rivers of ancestral sacrifice carrying me here and onward on my journey. To put it simply, If I stop remembering, If I stop appreciating and immersing myself in this beauty they have bequeathed, in this moment, to me, then what in 'Dantes Inferno hell' did they sacrifice themselves for.
.........

Another beautiful days ending. This one amid the obscenely weed free wheat, rape and barley fields above 'St Mihiel' On the river Meuse. There is a wee astronomy observatory next to us owned by the local association of astronomy enthusiasts. One of them, M'sieur Ronald arrived just as we had parked.  

"Est no problem." 

He said, in answer to my 'out of courtesy' query re parking up for the night.

M'sieur Ronald then proudly escorted me on a grand tour of the observatory with its  home made domed and opening fiberglass rotating roof. The large and old, but with excellent lenses, telescope then gazes out at the stars. Some wonderful photographs were on display and despite the language difference I think we did really well. You need a fairly good grasp of any language to discuss solutions to winter humidity affecting star gazing telescopes. We managed quite well though and I have a feeling purchase of a larger solar panel will be on the agenda of the next association meeting.

We started the day further north in the 'Verdun' battlefield just North East of Verdun itself. What can you say. More 'Dantes Inferno' everywhere you look or tread. Sections of trench left as they were. Areas, lots of them, left pockmarked with shell craters but now with grass and flowers growing in them. The whole area, apart from the tourist sites/memorials/forts etc is now attractive forest. I actually stayed deep in the forest last night and latish this morning was very gently, and with commendable understanding, moved on by the local police/forest ranger and reminded camping is not allowed as the whole area is regarded as a memorial site.

We spent the morning taking all this in. This afternoon we rang the bell of change and drove back South to 'St Mihiel', itself having a horrendous 1st WW story.  We  came instead to see part of its rich earlier history. There was a large and wealthy Benedictine monastery here. The buildings were put to other uses after the Monks left. However the library of ancient handwritten and early printed books remains to this day in a magnificent library. It was damaged and looted during the French revolution but now is a priceless archive of historical books. A complete and welcome contrast to the 'Dantes Inferno' I had chosen to immerse myself into for the last few days.

As I gaze out now at the ever darkening orange, red, pink and purple sunsetting sky I notice there is not a sound. Apart from a gentle and occasional snore from Tanya. I've one more day, tomorrow, Sunday in this area then 9am Monday, in Verdun, Tanya gets her Vet clearance for the UK and we head to Calais and a 6pm ferry to Dover on Tuesday evening.

This has been some trip.