Day 16, June 25, 2026 – Rest Day in Ypres
Although an optional 35-mile ride was possible for today, I chose to go only on a 10-mile ride to a cemetery and back. That gave me time to catch up on my blogs because I was behind three days.
Going such a short distance also enabled me to take a nap after my ride. With my room around 90 degrees last night, I did not sleep well. It has gotten even warmer today, with the temperature reaching 100 degrees this afternoon.
This afternoon, though, I walked to the In Flanders Fields Museum which tells the historic story of the First World War in the West Flemish front region. It narrates the invasion of Belgium and the first months of the war of movements, and the subsequent four years of trench warfare in the Westhoek, from the beach of Nieuwpoort to the Lys.
The extensive information about the battles in the Flanders area of Belgium was very informative and actually quite depressing. So many young men were mowed down in the Great War in prime of their lives. In some ways, it was reminiscent of the Vietnam War. Very little was gained for the thousands of young men who valiantly and needlessly died in both wars.
This afternoon, I walked to the Menin Gate. Between October 1914 and September 1918 hundreds of thousands of servicemen of the British Empire marched through the town of Ypres’s Menin Gate on their way to the battlefields. The memorial now stands as a reminder of those who died who have no known grave and is perhaps one of the most well-known war memorials in the world.
The gate bears the names of more than 54,000 soldiers who died in Belgium and have no known grave. This evening, I attended the Last Post Ceremony at 8.00 p.m. It honors those 54,000 men. In addition, people who have some attachment to the Great War can participate. Of our riders, Ian had a great uncle and Dawn had a grandfather who fought in the area. It was a touching ceremony.
As I write this blog in my hotel room at 9:05 p.m., my time, my phone won’t charge. The screen says, “Charging on Hold—Charging will resume when iPhone returns to normal temperature.” Tomorrow, the forecast is for the temperature to reach as high as 104 degrees. Fortunately, the route will not have a lot of elevation gain. However, we have to ride over lots of Belgian cobblestones. Stay tuned.
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