Ypres Salient Cones Hotline

[Mark Hone]

My wife and I popped over to Ieper for a couple of days and have been astonished by the amount of construction going on. Everywhere seems to be being ripped up: the Ramparts at Ypres, Polygon Wood, the Poperinge Ring Road and the main square in Poperinge, to name but a few. Are they hastily using up some local government construction budget before public spending cuts, is it a consequence of the harsh winter or an attempt at Keynsian economics to overcome the financial crisis?

Another mystery: why, since our last visit in 2008, has everyone started serving little pots of advocaat with coffee?

[centurion]

When I saw your thread title Ypres Salient Cones Hotline I had this idiotic image of Lt George turning from his trench periscope to say

"Golly gosh Sir, the Hun have got the answer to our tanks, they've bally well coned off their entire front line"

[Mark Hone]

Sorry, slightly flippant title but a serious message for battlefield tourists. Poperinge has been very difficult to get round in the last couple of days. Part of the southern ringroad is closed off and the square in front of the Amfora and Belfort is completely churned up. The car park has now become the road through the square and we nearly saw an accident because of this when we arrived this morning. Traffic in the whole area seems particularly frenetic at the moment-there was a crash at the Menin Gate yesterday just before the Last Post. Luckily no one was hurt.

[SteveMarsdin]

Good afternoon Mark,

Your Keynesian comment is probably nearer the mark. Certainly in the south of Belgium and neighbouring France there appears to have been an enormous amount of infrastructure spending, noticeable in my last few visits. In and around Sedan many of the historical sites have had new car parks, signage, orientation tables, picnic areas etc, a great improvement: the entire centre of Bazeilles was dug up last year, I thought they were trying to recreate 1870 !

[Chris_Baker]

Another mystery: why, since our last visit in 2008, has everyone started serving little pots of advocaat with coffee?

I've wondered that. I love it, but why?

[centurion]

A little known fact about the EC - the efforts of Klasse Van Plevort the Commissioner for Poultry to subsidise production resulted in an egg mountain which in turn became an Advocaat lake which members of the Commission are now quietly trying to dispose of before anyone notices.

[loganshort]

I had some advocaat with my coffee in Poperinge too! Lovely, it made me buy a little jar of it which is also great on vanilla ice cream, try it!

An advocaat lake Centurian? Maybe i should take up swimming.

[joanbelge]

In relation to comment that half of Belgium and northern France seem to be being dug up.....have just returned from 5 days in Ypres area and now know that perhaps wegommlegging does really mean diversion!! after aarriving for Last Post ceremony with less than 30 seconds to spare.

[tony paley]

Hi all,

Recent visit to the Salient and there are several roads in the Kemmel/ Dickebusch area closed, restricting access to some cwgc sites. Kemmel itself was closed last year and was in the same state this year. There are very few signs and it seems motorists are getting by with local knowledge that I didn't have, although good maps helped with diversions.

Tony P

[sabine72]

Yess, the bad winter, had his part of this big construction all over the place, but some works where planned , so called renovations, other works should have been finished, kemmel is a bit of a joke, wrong cobblestones, so they had to start all over again

wegomlegging is indeed diversion, and even us locals sometimes end up annoyed, because little roads just get closed over night

surprise, surprise, but at the end we will have nice roads again and that is important.

kind regards

sabine