Ramparts CWGC cemetery clip 1, June 2009

I am very interested in history, especially military history and as Ieper (Ypre) and it's surrounding battle fields, from The Great War (World War 1), are not too distant from where I live, I visit this region often. Doing this I visit many cemeteries of a military nature and so these will pop up from time to time on this blog. This and the next post will show two clips of the very small but evocative CWGC cemetery of Ramparts, which is set into the remnants of the old medieval defensive system around the old town of Ieper.

Clip 1 Ramparts cemetery, across the water

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Cycle beer racing, July 2009

The Flemish are famous for some of their unusual sporting pastimes, competition smoking, wooden cheese rolling, things like that. This one is a very sensible sport though, it should be part of the 2012 Olympics. Basically a beer balancing device, with a 25cl (about a half pint) glass of beer is connected to a stationary bicycle and well, watch the clip to find out :)

Cycle beer racing

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Harlebeke to Kortrijk on the train - Some blogs for the blog roll - Starting an informative sites list - Happy Flanders day

Happy Flanders day

Today is Flanders day here in Belgium. It is a celebration of a victory of Flemish forces over French forces back in the middle ages. If you wish to know more follow this link Battle of the Golden Spurs.

Information sites

There is a new list in the side bar, to your left, It is of information websites and is titled "Info Websites". It will mostly contain sites about Flanders and history websites. Here is a website to kick it off.

Flanders Today - This is a weekly, English language, internet magazine about what is going on in Flanders.

New blogs for the blog roll

Emm in London - A blog from another ex pat, a South African Lady living in London England.

Michael John Grist - Another ex pat blog, this time from an Englishman living in Japan. When you go to this blog you do not see the whole post, you have to click on the post title to see all of the post that you want to see.

Harlebeke to Kortrijk

Take away the stress of the day and finding out which platform that you should be on and all the other hassles of a train journey, then looking out of a train window can be very soothing. I have made a few "Between Stations" clips and will be posting them from time to time, they are a great way to see the good and bad bits of the landscape and get a bit of stress relief. Enjoy the ride.

For more info on Kortrijk and Harlebeke follow the kinks below.

Kortrijk - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Harelbeke in de kijker | Stad Harelbeke
Nieuw in Kortrijk | Stad Kortrijk

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Lille - Grand Place and war memorial, a photo post

As promised some photographs from in and around the Grand Place in Lille. For more info go to Lille - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia or Office de Tourisme de Lille.

The Lille war memorial

Love it or hate it, you have to admit it is one of the most impressive town war memorials in Europe.

A few photos from Lille's Grand Place

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Life going on in the Grand Place, Lille June 2009

Starting off looking down a street at Lille's main town War Memorial (there will be a photo or two of that in the next post), this clip is a pan around the Grand Place in Lille, showing life going on in an normal, weekday sort of way. The next and last post in this little series will show some photographs of this area of the city.

More info about Lille from Office de Tourisme de Lille.

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Buskers in Lille, June 2009

A couple of buskers in the Grand Place, Lille

This is the first of a three post series, about the Grand Place (Town Square) In Lille, there will be two clips and some photos. As you can see, in the clip, this is a pro am production. I am the am with my little tourist camcorder recording this scene from some steps, if you look to the left of the buskers you will see the pro, someone with some serious video kit. I feel a bit outclassed but at least I did not get some old guy in a white shirt doing his best to ruin my shot.

For the tourist information site visit this link Office de Tourisme de Lille.

Buskers in Lille

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A local car rally, Wervik June 2009

This is just a clip of a check point of a small local car rally, that I stumbled across. It is part of the 12 hours from Wervik rally, an event not on the main rally circuit that gives the smaller teams and amateurs with one of the events that they can compete in.

Rally check point

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