14? Is that the youngest person on this forum? Well anyway, that obviously means that I'm still at school, and that means school trips, and in S3 (Third year of High scholl in Scotland) you can choose a trip that lasts a week. So the options were;- Geography trip, where you spend a week staring at rocks, Modern Studies (Called something like social studies in England methinks), where you can go to London, and go to all the shops that are in Edinburgh (Where we live) and NOT visit the Imperial War Museum, OR... You can go on the History trip, where you go to France and Belgium and visit wargraves (cheery stuff, eh), battle fields towns like Ypres, oh, and blow all our money on chocolate/waffle shops and those fantastic French supermarkets. So yeah, in about less than a month I'm off for a week. I will bring back photos! Oh, and we visit Normany beach (Omaha), but apart from that its all WWI things, lke sanctuary wood (preserved trench network).
I was in the Ypres area a few days ago - no doubt you'll get taken to the Flanders Fields Museum, which, to me, was all style and no substance (aside from the gas mask fetish side of things), but if you can get there, the Lille Gate has the superb Ramparts museum, access to which is gained through the back of a pub and is three euros to get in, with great figure dioramas. The Passchendaele museum at Zonnebeke is superb too.
Didn't have time to get there but the better half (who's been there nearly 50 times, whereas i've been twice!) reccomended the Hill 60 and Hooge Crater museums, but apparently the Hill 62/Sanctuary Wood one is very hit and miss, WW2 weapons, original kit just left there to rust/rot.
I can't remember which one it is, but there's one museum with trenches on the western front where the supposed original trenches are the wrong way round for what they're supposed to be!
Yeah, thats the one thing I don't like about modern museums - the "Avant-Garde" (I REALLY hate that phrase) style. But we only go to Normandie, Picardie and Wallonie, but I do know how amazing the bastion around Lille is. But in the mean time, I have to do with pathetic Berwick-Upon-Tweed walls. Oh, and you talk of a pub with great dioramas? Well, both my sisters have been before, and they (the teachers) say that you go to a lace museum, when in fact you are diverted to a pub/resteraunt. Could that be it? Ideally, I'd blow all my money on chocolate the great French drink of "Ethno-Bar", and models, but I have to buy my lousy family presents *Grumble, grumble/various other spoiled child noises/actions*. Hah, no, just kidding.
Oh, and with the £60 I'm getting (Some kids get, like, £200), if I don't spend it all there, I have to give it back, so you'd just feel pressured to buy a load of rubbish you'll never touch again!
-- Edited by Hughbearson on Wednesday 28th of April 2010 07:31:19 PM
-- Edited by Hughbearson on Wednesday 28th of April 2010 07:31:38 PM
