Groesbeek Canadian War Cemetery and Memorial

July 13- Sunday we drove to The Groesbeek Canadian War Cemetery and Memorial is located about three kilometres north of the village of Groesbeek, Netherlands. The cemetery contains 2,338 Canadian soldiers of World War II.

The cemetery is unique in that many of the dead were brought here from nearby Germany. It is one of the few cases where bodies were moved across international frontiers. It is believed that all fallen Canadian soldiers of the Rhineland battles, who were buried in German battlefields, were reinterred here (except for one who is buried in Reichswald Forest War Cemetery). General H.D.G. Crerar, who commanded Canadian land forces in Europe, ordered that Canadian dead were not to be buried in German soil.

Thousands of Dutch children tend the graves of the soldiers buried here as they do throughout the Netherlands.

July 12

We got up early today and drove north about 140 km to an island named Texel, pronounced Tessel.  First to the Port town of Den Helder and then a 20 minute ferry ride to the island. It actually took me longer to park our van and then walk back to the ferry.  We rented bikes and did about 15 km round trip. We stopped in a place called Den Berg and had some lunch and a beer. The weather was incredible and we enjoyed an awesome bike ride out in the country.

Today we took Grandma and Grandpa to Evert’s(Grandmas Cousin) in Laren for his 81 birthday.  We left all of them to visit and the Niven group headed back to Soest.  We stopped at the C1000 which is a grocery store and got some nibblies for lunch.  After lunch we grabbed some bikes and went for a little tour of Soest.

Day 3 Paris – it was a short day in Paris and a long day on a bus……

• Day 2 in Paris – July 8
• Action packed full day in Paris
• City tour on our bus
• Boat tour on the Seine
• A quick walk around Mr. Eiffel’s Tower
• Shopping, people watching
• Dinner – at a traditional French restaurant.  I had steak…..I definitely love and miss Alberta Beef
• Watched the lights turn on on the Eiffel Tower

Yesterday we went out to a great little French restaurant by The Moulin Rouge. We had raclette, which is beef,pork,fish,etc and you put it on a grill and cook it yourself. After supper we browsed around all the souvenir shops, kinda like Mexico. We then went to the Starbucks and people watched.

PS. Always keep an eye on your purse/wallets. Pit pockets are all over the place.

We are waiting for our bus to take us to Paris for three days…

We had a slower day today…slept in, a little breakfast and lots of rain!  That seems to not bother the locals so much, they are used to the rainy weather and not made of sugar(like me)…lots of people out and about doing their regular Saturday stuff.  The skies kind of cleared up in the afternoon and we headed to Laren to go to the Kermis or carnival.  A little more rain but mostly nice, the boys enjoyed bumper cars and The Fun House, pretty much universally the same around the world, Kermis, Stampede or Calaway Park.  We also went to the Poffertes Tent(see previous post)

In about an hour from when I am writing this we are going to watch the Netherlands v Costa Rica Match in the World Cup.

Tot Ziens – Jud