Flanders Fields

On Sunday, January 5th, we set out on the road to go back home to Kampen.  The trip was set to take about 3 hours, but we had decided to stretch out the adventure for the entire day, by making two specific stops.  The first stop was to Flanders Fields.  These WWI battlefields, which are about 40 miles away from Bruges, remain infamous in military history.  We could have spent an entire day driving through the countryside, getting out and taking in the sites, but we had an agenda to keep to.  We compromised and decided to drive into the town of Ypres, where we visited the In Flanders Fields Museum.  This was one of the most moving museums we have visited, filled with graphic descriptions, artifacts of so many amazing and horrific things, dark and eery music playing in the background, and even a bell tower to climb and take in the view of the distant fields.  It was a worthwhile stop, to say the least, not to mention that I can't believe we have gotten by with taking our kids to so many museums in just 4 months!

The museum is inside the Cloth Hall in the market square of Ypres, Belgium.

Climbing, climbing, climbing...

While standing to take this picture, the bells tolled and played for us - it was pretty awesome!

Made it to the top!  Our kids love bell towers, and are becoming pros in Europe!

Because we seem to have a trend going with museums and rewards for the kids, when we finished our tour of the museum, we let the kids take a ride on the carousel outside (that had been a part of a Christmas Market which was already shut down).  They loved it!

We had a great lunch - Belgium waffles and bratwurst, with chocolate for dessert! - and then we hit the road to reach our final stop before Kampen.